Children's Environmental Health Initiative, Nicholas School of the Environment, Duke University, Box 90328, Durham, NC 27708, USA.
Int J Environ Res Public Health. 2011 Jun;8(6):1755-71. doi: 10.3390/ijerph8061755. Epub 2011 May 25.
This paper assesses whether the Clean Air Act and its Amendments have been equally successful in ensuring the right to healthful air quality in both advantaged and disadvantaged communities in the United States. Using a method to rank air quality established by the American Lung Association in its 2009 State of the Air report along with EPA air quality data, we assess the environmental justice dimensions of air pollution exposure and access to air quality information in the United States. We focus on the race, age, and poverty demographics of communities with differing levels of ozone and particulate matter exposure, as well as communities with and without air quality information. Focusing on PM2.5 and ozone, we find that within areas covered by the monitoring networks, non-Hispanic blacks are consistently overrepresented in communities with the poorest air quality. The results for older and younger age as well as poverty vary by the pollution metric under consideration. Rural areas are typically outside the bounds of air quality monitoring networks leaving large segments of the population without information about their ambient air quality. These results suggest that substantial areas of the United States lack monitoring data, and among areas where monitoring data are available, low income and minority communities tend to experience higher ambient pollution levels.
本文评估了《清洁空气法案》及其修正案是否同样成功地确保了美国优势和劣势社区享有健康空气质量的权利。我们使用美国肺脏协会在其 2009 年《空气状况报告》中建立的空气质量排名方法以及美国环保署空气质量数据，评估了美国空气污染暴露和获取空气质量信息的环境正义维度。我们关注臭氧和颗粒物暴露程度不同的社区以及有和没有空气质量信息的社区的种族、年龄和贫困人口统计学特征。我们专注于 PM2.5 和臭氧，发现在所监测网络覆盖的区域内，非西班牙裔黑人在空气质量最差的社区中始终占过高比例。对于年龄较大和较小以及贫困的结果因所考虑的污染指标而异。农村地区通常不在空气质量监测网络的范围内，导致大量人口缺乏有关其周围空气质量的信息。这些结果表明，美国的大片地区缺乏监测数据，而在有监测数据的地区，低收入和少数族裔社区往往会经历更高的环境污染物水平。
