TY - JOUR
T1 - Pollution, place, and premature death
T2 - evidence from a mid-sized city
AU - Gilderbloom, John Hans
AU - Meares, Wesley L.
AU - Squires, Gregory D.
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2020, © 2020 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.
PY - 2020/6/2
Y1 - 2020/6/2
N2 - Neighborhood life expectancy varies by as much as 10 years across the City of Louisville. In 2013, the Greater Louisville Project funded by local government, businesses, and foundations, argued these differences had little to do with environmental factors. The Greater Louisville Project (2013) study argued that these neighborhood differences could be attributed 40% to socio-economic factors (with a major emphasis on education), 10% to physical environment, 30% to health behaviors, and 20% to access to medical care. To test these claims, we construct our own model of neighborhood variation in years of potential life lost (YPLL) by adding two variables testing environmental degradation. We operationalise two separate measures of environmental contamination: proximity to EPA designated brownfield sites and proximity to chemical factories in an industrial park in the neighborhood known as “Rubbertown”. We conduct several regression analyses, which show a relationship between proximity to environmental contaminants and an increase in neighborhood YPLL. Our beta weights challenge the claims made by the Greater Louisville Project, which minimize the impact nearness to environmental contaminants has on reductions in life expectancy in Louisville neighborhoods.
AB - Neighborhood life expectancy varies by as much as 10 years across the City of Louisville. In 2013, the Greater Louisville Project funded by local government, businesses, and foundations, argued these differences had little to do with environmental factors. The Greater Louisville Project (2013) study argued that these neighborhood differences could be attributed 40% to socio-economic factors (with a major emphasis on education), 10% to physical environment, 30% to health behaviors, and 20% to access to medical care. To test these claims, we construct our own model of neighborhood variation in years of potential life lost (YPLL) by adding two variables testing environmental degradation. We operationalise two separate measures of environmental contamination: proximity to EPA designated brownfield sites and proximity to chemical factories in an industrial park in the neighborhood known as “Rubbertown”. We conduct several regression analyses, which show a relationship between proximity to environmental contaminants and an increase in neighborhood YPLL. Our beta weights challenge the claims made by the Greater Louisville Project, which minimize the impact nearness to environmental contaminants has on reductions in life expectancy in Louisville neighborhoods.
KW - Environmental justice
KW - Inequality
KW - lifespan
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85085031868&partnerID=8YFLogxK
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U2 - 10.1080/13549839.2020.1754776
DO - 10.1080/13549839.2020.1754776
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85085031868
SN - 1354-9839
VL - 25
SP - 419
EP - 432
JO - Local Environment
JF - Local Environment
IS - 6
ER -