Waller L A, Louis T A, Carlin B P
University of Minnesota, School of Public Health, Minneapolis 55455, USA.
J Expo Anal Environ Epidemiol. 1999 Jan-Feb;9(1):56-65. doi: 10.1038/sj.jea.7500026.
Recent regulatory action requires the assessment of environmental justice (equitable protection from the burdens of environmental hazards across sociodemographic subpopulations) in the siting of hazardous waste sites, and prioritization of environmental remediation efforts. Assessments of environmental justice require linking exposure, demographic, and health data. The geographic nature of the data makes the use of geographic information systems attractive for environmental justice assessments. Typical geographic assessments compare the composition of 'exposed' populations, while typical statistical assessments focus on differences in health outcomes between population subgroups, possibly adjusted for exposure. We outline an alternate approach based on summarized differences between exposure distributions within each population subgroup. We illustrate how such summaries provide a tool for site evaluation (e.g., defining exposure inequities resulting from locating a new potential hazard at any of a number of possible sites). In addition, we describe summaries, based on dose-response relationships, to describe risk differences imposed by the observed exposure differences. Reported toxic emissions from Allegheny County, Pennsylvania illustrate the approach.
最近的监管行动要求在危险废物处置场选址时评估环境正义（即社会人口亚群体公平地免受环境危害的负担），并对环境修复工作进行优先排序。环境正义评估需要将暴露、人口统计和健康数据联系起来。数据的地理特性使得地理信息系统在环境正义评估中具有吸引力。典型的地理评估比较“暴露”人群的构成，而典型的统计评估则关注人群亚组之间健康结果的差异，并可能对暴露情况进行调整。我们概述了一种基于各人群亚组内暴露分布汇总差异的替代方法。我们说明了这种汇总如何为场地评估提供一种工具（例如，确定在多个可能的场地中的任何一个设置新的潜在危害所导致的暴露不平等）。此外，我们描述了基于剂量反应关系的汇总，以描述观察到的暴露差异所带来的风险差异。宾夕法尼亚州阿勒格尼县报告的有毒排放情况说明了该方法。
