IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/socmed/v226y2019icp176-181.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Hurricane Harvey and people with disabilities: Disproportionate exposure to flooding in Houston, Texas

Author

Listed:
  • Chakraborty, Jayajit
  • Grineski, Sara E.
  • Collins, Timothy W.

Abstract

While numerous environmental justice (EJ) studies have found socially disadvantaged groups such as racial/ethnic minorities and low-income individuals to be disproportionately affected by environmental hazards, previous EJ research has not examined whether disabled individuals are disproportionately exposed to natural hazards. Our article addresses this gap by conducting the first distributive EJ study of the relationship between flooding caused by Hurricane Harvey and locations of people with disabilities in Harris County, the most populous county in Texas that was severely impacted by this disaster. Our objective is to determine whether the areal extent of flooding at the neighborhood (census tract) level is disproportionately distributed with respect to people with any disability and with specific types of disabilities, after controlling for relevant socio-demographic factors. Our study integrates cartographic information from Harvey's Inundation Footprint developed by the U.S. Federal Emergency Management Agency with data on disability and socio-demographic characteristics from the 2012–2016 American Community Survey. Statistical analyses are based on bivariate correlations and multivariate generalized estimating equations, a modeling technique appropriate for clustered data. Results indicate that the areal extent of Harvey-induced flooding is significantly greater in neighborhoods with a higher proportion of disabled residents, after controlling for race/ethnicity, socioeconomic factors, and clustering. Disabled individuals with cognitive and ambulatory difficulties are more likely to reside in neighborhoods with a higher proportion of flooded area, compared to those facing other types of difficulties. These results represent an important starting point for more detailed investigation on the disproportionate impacts associated with Hurricane Harvey for people with disabilities. Our findings also highlight the growing need to consider individuals with physical and mental disabilities in future EJ research, as well as planning and management of natural disasters.

Suggested Citation

  • Chakraborty, Jayajit & Grineski, Sara E. & Collins, Timothy W., 2019. "Hurricane Harvey and people with disabilities: Disproportionate exposure to flooding in Houston, Texas," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 226(C), pages 176-181.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:socmed:v:226:y:2019:i:c:p:176-181
    DOI: 10.1016/j.socscimed.2019.02.039
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0277953619301121
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.socscimed.2019.02.039?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Jayajit Chakraborty & Timothy W. Collins & Sara E. Grineski & Marilyn C. Montgomery & Maricarmen Hernandez, 2014. "Comparing Disproportionate Exposure to Acute and Chronic Pollution Risks: A Case Study in Houston, Texas," Risk Analysis, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 34(11), pages 2005-2020, November.
    2. Collins, Timothy W. & Grineski, Sara E. & Morales, Danielle X., 2017. "Environmental injustice and sexual minority health disparities: A national study of inequitable health risks from air pollution among same-sex partners," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 191(C), pages 38-47.
    3. Timothy W. Collins & Sara E. Grineski & Jayajit Chakraborty & Marilyn C. Montgomery & Maricarmen Hernandez, 2015. "Downscaling Environmental Justice Analysis: Determinants of Household-Level Hazardous Air Pollutant Exposure in Greater Houston," Annals of the American Association of Geographers, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 105(4), pages 684-703, July.
    4. Grineski, Sara E. & Collins, Timothy W. & Morales, Danielle X., 2017. "Asian Americans and disproportionate exposure to carcinogenic hazardous air pollutants: A national study," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 185(C), pages 71-80.
    5. David C. Folch & Daniel Arribas-Bel & Julia Koschinsky & Seth E. Spielman, 2016. "Spatial Variation in the Quality of American Community Survey Estimates," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 53(5), pages 1535-1554, October.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Daniel Béland & Alex Jingwei He & M Ramesh, 2022. "COVID-19, crisis responses, and public policies: from the persistence of inequalities to the importance of policy design [The impact of COVID-19 on gender equality]," Policy and Society, Darryl S. Jarvis and M. Ramesh, vol. 41(2), pages 187-198.
    2. Eric Tate & Md Asif Rahman & Christopher T. Emrich & Christopher C. Sampson, 2021. "Flood exposure and social vulnerability in the United States," Natural Hazards: Journal of the International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards, Springer;International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards, vol. 106(1), pages 435-457, March.
    3. Yi Chen & Hui Liu & Zhicong Ye & Hao Zhang & Bifeng Jiang & Yang Zhang, 2022. "Social Justice in Urban–Rural Flood Exposure: A Case Study of Nanjing, China," Land, MDPI, vol. 11(9), pages 1-14, September.
    4. Vijay S. Limaye, 2021. "Making the climate crisis personal through a focus on human health," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 166(3), pages 1-11, June.
    5. Dean Kyne, 2023. "Willingness to Prepare for Disasters among Individuals with Disabilities: An Essential Component for Building Disaster Resiliency," Social Sciences, MDPI, vol. 12(7), pages 1-18, July.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Collins, Timothy W. & Nadybal, Shawna & Grineski, Sara E., 2020. "Sonic injustice: Disparate residential exposures to transport noise from road and aviation sources in the continental United States," Journal of Transport Geography, Elsevier, vol. 82(C).
    2. Grineski, Sara & Collins, Tim & Renteria, Roger & Rubio, Ricardo, 2021. "Multigenerational immigrant trajectories and children's unequal exposure to fine particulate matter in the US," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 282(C).
    3. Jayajit Chakraborty & Timothy W. Collins & Sara E. Grineski & Alejandra Maldonado, 2017. "Racial Differences in Perceptions of Air Pollution Health Risk: Does Environmental Exposure Matter?," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 14(2), pages 1-16, January.
    4. Yasamin Shaker & Sara E. Grineski & Timothy W. Collins & Aaron B. Flores, 2023. "Redlining, racism and food access in US urban cores," Agriculture and Human Values, Springer;The Agriculture, Food, & Human Values Society (AFHVS), vol. 40(1), pages 101-112, March.
    5. Raoul S. Liévanos & Clare R. Evans & Ryan Light, 2021. "An Intercategorical Ecology of Lead Exposure: Complex Environmental Health Vulnerabilities in the Flint Water Crisis," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 18(5), pages 1-23, February.
    6. Jayajit Chakraborty & Ashley A. McAfee & Timothy W. Collins & Sara E. Grineski, 2021. "Exposure to Hurricane Harvey flooding for subsidized housing residents of Harris County, Texas," Natural Hazards: Journal of the International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards, Springer;International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards, vol. 106(3), pages 2185-2205, April.
    7. Gabrielle Linscott & Andrea Rishworth & Brian King & Mikael P. Hiestand, 2022. "Uneven experiences of urban flooding: examining the 2010 Nashville flood," Natural Hazards: Journal of the International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards, Springer;International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards, vol. 110(1), pages 629-653, January.
    8. Michel G. Loustaunau & Jayajit Chakraborty, 2019. "Vehicular Air Pollution in Houston, Texas: An Intra-Categorical Analysis of Environmental Injustice," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 16(16), pages 1-16, August.
    9. Jayajit Chakraborty & Pratyusha Basu, 2018. "Linking Industrial Hazards and Social Inequalities: Environmental Injustice in Gujarat, India," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 16(1), pages 1-13, December.
    10. Sara E. Grineski & Timothy W. Collins & Jayajit Chakraborty & Marilyn Montgomery, 2017. "Hazard Characteristics and Patterns of Environmental Injustice: Household‐Level Determinants of Environmental Risk in Miami, Florida," Risk Analysis, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 37(7), pages 1419-1434, July.
    11. Alvarez, Camila H. & Evans, Clare Rosenfeld, 2021. "Intersectional environmental justice and population health inequalities: A novel approach," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 269(C).
    12. Lara J. Cushing & Shiwen Li & Benjamin B. Steiger & Joan A. Casey, 2023. "Historical red-lining is associated with fossil fuel power plant siting and present-day inequalities in air pollutant emissions," Nature Energy, Nature, vol. 8(1), pages 52-61, January.
    13. James Gaboardi, 2020. "Validating Abstract Representations of Spatial Population Data while considering Disclosure Avoidance," Working Papers 20-5, Center for Economic Studies, U.S. Census Bureau.
    14. Hekmatpour, Peyman & Leslie, Carrie McLachlin, 2022. "Ecologically unequal exchange and disparate death rates attributable to air pollution: A comparative study of 169 countries from 1991 to 2017," OSF Preprints racms, Center for Open Science.
    15. Maarten Loopmans & Linde Smits & Anneleen Kenis, 2022. "Rethinking environmental justice: capability building, public knowledge and the struggle against traffic-related air pollution," Environment and Planning C, , vol. 40(3), pages 705-723, May.
    16. Jing Zhao & Laura Gladson & Kevin Cromar, 2018. "A Novel Environmental Justice Indicator for Managing Local Air Pollution," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 15(6), pages 1-13, June.
    17. James Gaboardi, 2020. "Validating Abstract Representations of Spatial Population Data while considering Disclosure Avoidance," Working Papers 20-05, Center for Economic Studies, U.S. Census Bureau.
    18. Juliana A. Maantay & Andrew R. Maroko, 2018. "Brownfields to Greenfields: Environmental Justice Versus Environmental Gentrification," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 15(10), pages 1-17, October.
    19. Oliver E. J. Wing & William Lehman & Paul D. Bates & Christopher C. Sampson & Niall Quinn & Andrew M. Smith & Jeffrey C. Neal & Jeremy R. Porter & Carolyn Kousky, 2022. "Inequitable patterns of US flood risk in the Anthropocene," Nature Climate Change, Nature, vol. 12(2), pages 156-162, February.
    20. Dong-ah Choi & Keunhyun Park & Alessandro Rigolon, 2020. "From XS to XL Urban Nature: Examining Access to Different Types of Green Space Using a ‘Just Sustainabilities’ Framework," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(17), pages 1-25, August.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:socmed:v:226:y:2019:i:c:p:176-181. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaldescription.cws_home/315/description#description .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.