IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/plo/pone00/0094431.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

National Patterns in Environmental Injustice and Inequality: Outdoor NO2 Air Pollution in the United States

Author

Listed:
  • Lara P Clark
  • Dylan B Millet
  • Julian D Marshall

Abstract

We describe spatial patterns in environmental injustice and inequality for residential outdoor nitrogen dioxide (NO2) concentrations in the contiguous United States. Our approach employs Census demographic data and a recently published high-resolution dataset of outdoor NO2 concentrations. Nationally, population-weighted mean NO2 concentrations are 4.6 ppb (38%, p 2.5 hours/week of physical activity). Inequality for NO2 concentration is greater than inequality for income (Atkinson Index: 0.11 versus 0.08). Low-income nonwhite young children and elderly people are disproportionately exposed to residential outdoor NO2. Our findings establish a national context for previous work that has documented air pollution environmental injustice and inequality within individual US metropolitan areas and regions. Results given here can aid policy-makers in identifying locations with high environmental injustice and inequality. For example, states with both high injustice and high inequality (top quintile) for outdoor residential NO2 include New York, Michigan, and Wisconsin.

Suggested Citation

  • Lara P Clark & Dylan B Millet & Julian D Marshall, 2014. "National Patterns in Environmental Injustice and Inequality: Outdoor NO2 Air Pollution in the United States," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 9(4), pages 1-8, April.
    • Handle: RePEc:plo:pone00:0094431
    DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0094431
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0094431
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/file?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0094431&type=printable
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1371/journal.pone.0094431?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
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Lisa Schweitzer & Jiangping Zhou, 2010. "Neighborhood Air Quality, Respiratory Health, and Vulnerable Populations in Compact and Sprawled Regions," Journal of the American Planning Association, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 76(3), pages 363-371.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Fang Wang & Yaoyao Peng & Chunyan Jiang, 2017. "Influence of Road Patterns on PM 2.5 Concentrations and the Available Solutions: The Case of Beijing City, China," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 9(2), pages 1-17, February.
    2. Juwon Chung & Seung-Nam Kim & Hyungkyoo Kim, 2019. "The Impact of PM 10 Levels on Pedestrian Volume: Findings from Streets in Seoul, South Korea," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 16(23), pages 1-23, December.
    3. Hedefalk, Finn & van Dijk, Ingrid K & Dribe, Martin, 2022. "Childhood neighborhoods and cause-specific adult mortality in Sweden 1939-2015," SocArXiv ynpb3, Center for Open Science.
    4. Pawinee Iamtrakul & Sararad Chayphong & Adrian Yat Wai Lo, 2022. "Exploring the Contribution of Social and Economic Status Factors (SES) to the Development of Learning Cities (LC)," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(19), pages 1-20, October.
    5. Boeing, Geoff & Pilgram, Clemens & Lu, Yougeng, 2024. "Urban Street Network Design and Transport-Related Greenhouse Gas Emissions around the World," SocArXiv r32vj, Center for Open Science.
    6. Jung Eun Kang & D.K. Yoon & Hyun-Joo Bae, 2019. "Evaluating the effect of compact urban form on air quality in Korea," Environment and Planning B, , vol. 46(1), pages 179-200, January.
    7. Figueroa, Maria J. & Nielsen, Thomas A. Sick & Siren, Anu, 2014. "Comparing urban form correlations of the travel patterns of older and younger adults," Transport Policy, Elsevier, vol. 35(C), pages 10-20.
    8. Rui Wang & Quan Yuan, 2017. "Are denser cities greener? Evidence from China, 2000–2010," Natural Resources Forum, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 41(3), pages 179-189, August.
    9. Jones, Peter & Lucas, Karen, 2012. "The social consequences of transport decision-making: clarifying concepts, synthesising knowledge and assessing implications," Journal of Transport Geography, Elsevier, vol. 21(C), pages 4-16.
    10. LEE, Sungwon & LEE, Bumsoo, 2020. "Comparing the impacts of local land use and urban spatial structure on household VMT and GHG emissions," Journal of Transport Geography, Elsevier, vol. 84(C).
    11. Peter Newman, 2014. "Density, the Sustainability Multiplier: Some Myths and Truths with Application to Perth, Australia," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 6(9), pages 1-21, September.
    12. Bita Rezaeian & Mohammad Rahim Rahnama & Jafar Javan & Omid Ali Kharazmi, 2017. "The Impact of Built Environment Characteristics on Energy Consumption Using Geographically Weighted Regression in Mashhad, Iran," Journal of Sustainable Development, Canadian Center of Science and Education, vol. 10(5), pages 198-198, September.
    13. Man Yuan & Mingrui Yan & Zhuoran Shan, 2021. "Is Compact Urban Form Good for Air Quality? A Case Study from China Based on Hourly Smartphone Data," Land, MDPI, vol. 10(5), pages 1-14, May.
    14. Jiansheng Wu & Junhao Zhou & Wen Zhang, 2020. "A Framework to Classify Environmental Inequity in Absolute and Relative Terms, and Its Application in Beijing," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(11), pages 1-16, June.
    15. Giuseppe Cantisani & Maria Vittoria Corazza & Paola Di Mascio & Laura Moretti, 2023. "Eight Traffic Calming “Easy Pieces” to Shape the Everyday Pedestrian Realm," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(10), pages 1-22, May.
    16. Chunshan Zhou & Shijie Li & Shaojian Wang, 2018. "Examining the Impacts of Urban Form on Air Pollution in Developing Countries: A Case Study of China’s Megacities," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 15(8), pages 1-18, July.
    17. McGreevy, Michael & Harris, Patrick & Delaney-Crowe, Toni & Fisher, Matt & Sainsbury, Peter & Riley, Emily & Baum, Fran, 2020. "How well do Australian government urban planning policies respond to the social determinants of health and health equity?," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 99(C).
    18. Lan Wang & Wenyao Sun & Kaichen Zhou & Minlu Zhang & Pingping Bao, 2019. "Spatial Analysis of Built Environment Risk for Respiratory Health and Its Implication for Urban Planning: A Case Study of Shanghai," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 16(8), pages 1-16, April.
    19. Tom Rye & Anders Wretstrand, 2019. "Swedish and Scottish National Transport Policy and Spend: A Social Equity Analysis," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(7), pages 1-16, March.
    20. Chaosu Li & Yan Song & Li Tian & Wei Ouyang, 2020. "Urban Form, Air Quality, and Cardiorespiratory Mortality: A Path Analysis," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 17(4), pages 1-14, February.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    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:plo:pone00:0094431. 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: plosone (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/ .

    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.