Department of Sociology, University of Oregon, Eugene, OR 97403-1291, USA.
Int J Environ Res Public Health. 2018 Apr 16;15(4):762. doi: 10.3390/ijerph15040762.
The California Community Environmental Health Screening Tool (CalEnviroScreen) advances research and policy pertaining to environmental health vulnerability. However, CalEnviroScreen departs from its historical foundations and comparable screening tools by no longer considering racial status as an indicator of environmental health vulnerability and predictor of cumulative pollution burden. This study used conceptual frameworks and analytical techniques from environmental health and inequality literature to address the limitations of CalEnviroScreen, especially its inattention to race-based environmental health vulnerabilities. It developed an adjusted measure of cumulative pollution burden from the CalEnviroScreen 2.0 data that facilitates multivariate analyses of the effect of neighborhood racial composition on cumulative pollution burden, net of other indicators of population vulnerability, traffic density, industrial zoning, and local and regional clustering of pollution burden. Principal component analyses produced three new measures of population vulnerability, including Latina/o cumulative disadvantage that represents the spatial concentration of Latinas/os, economic disadvantage, limited English-speaking ability, and health vulnerability. Spatial error regression analyses demonstrated that concentrations of Latinas/os, followed by Latina/o cumulative disadvantage, are the strongest demographic determinants of adjusted cumulative pollution burden. Findings have implications for research and policy pertaining to cumulative impacts and race-based environmental health vulnerabilities within and beyond California.
加利福尼亚社区环境健康筛查工具（CalEnviroScreen）推进了与环境健康脆弱性相关的研究和政策。然而，CalEnviroScreen 偏离了其历史基础和可比的筛查工具，不再将种族地位视为环境健康脆弱性的指标和累积污染负担的预测因素。本研究使用环境健康和不平等文献中的概念框架和分析技术来解决 CalEnviroScreen 的局限性，特别是其对基于种族的环境健康脆弱性的关注不足。它从 CalEnviroScreen 2.0 数据中开发了一个累积污染负担的调整衡量标准，从而便于对邻里种族构成对累积污染负担的影响进行多元分析，而不受其他人口脆弱性指标、交通密度、工业分区以及污染负担的本地和区域聚类的影响。主成分分析产生了三个新的人口脆弱性衡量标准，包括拉丁裔累积劣势，代表拉丁裔的空间集中、经济劣势、英语能力有限和健康脆弱性。空间误差回归分析表明，拉丁裔的集中程度，其次是拉丁裔累积劣势，是调整后累积污染负担的最强人口决定因素。这些发现对加利福尼亚内外的累积影响和基于种族的环境健康脆弱性的研究和政策具有重要意义。
