Elsevier

Environmental Research

Volume 102, Issue 2, October 2006, Pages 181-196
Environmental Research

The riskscape and the color line: Examining the role of segregation in environmental health disparities

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.envres.2006.05.007Get rights and content

Abstract

Environmental health researchers, sociologists, policy-makers, and activists concerned about environmental justice argue that communities of color who are segregated in neighborhoods with high levels of poverty and material deprivation are also disproportionately exposed to physical environments that adversely affect their health and well-being. Examining these issues through the lens of racial residential segregation can offer new insights into the junctures of the political economy of social inequality with discrimination, environmental degradation, and health. More importantly, this line of inquiry may highlight whether observed pollution—health outcome relationships are modified by segregation and whether segregation patterns impact diverse communities differently.

This paper examines theoretical and methodological questions related to racial residential segregation and environmental health disparities. We begin with an overview of race-based segregation in the United States and propose a framework for understanding its implications for environmental health disparities. We then discuss applications of segregation measures for assessing disparities in ambient air pollution burdens across racial groups and go on to discuss the applicability of these methods for other environmental exposures and health outcomes. We conclude with a discussion of the research and policy implications of understanding how racial residential segregation impacts environmental health disparities.

Introduction

The color line is not static; it bends and buckles and sometimes breaks.

(Drake and Cayton, 1945)

Race, as a social construct and mechanism of classification, has historically defined and continues to shape the distribution of power, privilege, and economic resources in American society (Crenshaw, 1988; Jones, 2001; Lawrence, 1987; Wellman, 1993). Myriad forms of past and present discrimination in the US are imprinted onto our urban landscape, as evidenced by the persistent spatial separation of diverse communities along racial/ethnic and, to a lesser extent, class lines (Farley, 1995; Jargowsky, 1997; Logan and Molotch, 1987; Massey and Denton, 1993; Massey and Gross, 1994; Walker, 1981). Wide-ranging and complex political, socioeconomic, and discriminatory forces coupled with patterns of industrialization, disinvestment, and development have segregated people of color, particularly African Americans, into neighborhoods with some of the highest indices of urban poverty and deprivation (Peet, 1984; Schultz et al., 2002; Walker, 1985). Indeed, uneven industrial development, the movement of economic opportunities away from inner cities, real-estate speculation, discrimination in government and private financing, and exclusionary zoning have led to systemic racial segregation among diverse communities with important implications for community health and individual well-being (Bobo, 2001; Harvey, 1989; Logan and Molotch, 1987; Massey, 2004; Morello-Frosch, 2002; Sinton, 1997; Wilson, 1996). The socioeconomic effects of urban segregation are further amplified by racialized boundaries in schools, the workplace and in some regions through policies such as immigration law and welfare reform (Hersh, 1995; Morello-Frosch, 2002; Pulido et al., 1996).

Although elements for understanding the relationship between residential segregation and community environmental health can be found separately in the sociology literature and the environmental justice literature, only two previous investigations have combined these lines of inquiry to analyze the relationship between outdoor air pollution exposure and segregation (Lopez, 2002; Morello-Frosch and Jesdale, 2006). Some researchers have recently argued that residential segregation is a crucial starting point for understanding the origins and persistence of environmental health disparities (Gee and Payne-Sturges, 2004; Lopez, 2002; Morello-Frosch, 2002; Morello-Frosch et al., 2001, Morello-Frosch et al., 2002b). Here, we examine theoretical and methodological questions related to racial residential segregation and environmental health. We seek to address the following questions: (1) What are the various ways that segregation is conceptualized and how are these concepts measured? (2) Given that most measures of segregation consider only dyads, to what extent are existing measures of segregation valid for multi-ethnic regions? (3) How have segregation measures been applied to examine environmental health disparities such as air pollution? (4) Can these methods be used for other exposures and health issues? The paper begins with an overview of race-based segregation in the United States and proposes a framework for understanding its implications for environmental health disparities. We then discuss applications of segregation for assessing disparities in ambient air pollution burdens across racial groups and go on to discuss the applicability of these methods for other environmental exposures and health outcomes. Finally, we conclude by outlining some of the policy and regulatory implications of using residential segregation measures to research and track structural drivers of environmental health disparities.

Section snippets

Environmental health disparities in the context of neighborhoods and regions

The burgeoning literature on health disparities has compelled researchers to move beyond proximate causes of poor health toward identifying socioeconomic factors that shape distributions of health and disease in populations (House and Williams, 2000; Kaplan and Lynch, 1999; Link and Phelan, 1995; Navarro, 2002). This requires examining how the socioeconomic conditions of residential environments affect health and well-being and how the historical and locationally based antecedents of

A conceptual framework for linking segregation to environmental health disparities

We propose a framework for understanding the relationship between racial residential segregation and various indicators of environmental health inequalities. Building on concepts proposed by other health inequality researchers (Gee and Payne-Sturges, 2004; Schultz et al., 2002), Fig. 1 demonstrates an ecosocial or biosocial framework (Krieger, 1994, Krieger, 1999; Massey, 2004) that connects a spatial form of social inequality (i.e., racial segregation) to community-level conditions that

The dimensions and measurement of racial residential segregation

The fields of sociology and demography have given substantial attention to theorizing and measuring dimensions of segregation (Duncan and Duncan, 1955a, Duncan and Duncan, 1955b). Although a report by the US Census lists over a dozen measures (Iceland et al., 2002), five basic dimensions of racial and ethnic segregation dominate the literature: evenness, isolation, concentration, centralization, and clustering (James and Taeuber, 1985; Massey and Denton, 1988; Stearns and Logan, 1986; White,

Analytical applications of segregation measures in environmental health

It remains unclear how socioeconomic inequality and segregation degrade the health of populations living in hazardous physical and social environments and ultimately lead to environmental health disparities. Place-based inequality measures, such as segregation, may modify and compound the adverse effects of hazardous environmental exposures, although this issue has not been thoroughly researched (Evans and Kranowitz, 2002). Few environmental health issues have been studied in the context of

Applying segregation measures to study other environmental hazards and health outcomes

The techniques used to examine relationships between segregation and inequities in ambient air pollution exposures can be applied to other environmental health issues to elucidate socioeconomic drivers of environmental health disparities. Moreover, although the focus of this paper is on residential segregation, links between segregation and environmental health disparities can also be examined in other contexts, such as the workplace (e.g., to examine occupational health disparities) and in

Segregation in relation to health outcomes that may be environmentally mediated

There are profound racial differences in residential patterns and in environmental exposure burdens. Together, these may imply that segregation and the resulting inequality in the toxicity of residential environments may be contributing to racial differences in morbidity and mortality. The following suggest some of the potential associations and causal pathways between segregation and health outcomes that are environmentally mediated or that may enhance community vulnerability to the toxic

Conclusions and implications for research and policy

Advocates working on environmental justice issues have urged scientists, policymakers, and the regulatory community to consider the junctures of socio-economic inequality, environmental protection, and public health. Certain disparities in exposures to environmental hazards may be related to or mediated by the degree of racial residential segregation, and these exposures may have important clinical and environmental health significance for populations across racial and class lines. Additional

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    Funding sources: This paper was written for the “Environmental Health Disparities Workshop: Connecting Social and Environmental Factors to Measure and Track Environmental Health Disparities,” under contract to EPA, Contract No. EP-W-04—049, Task Order No. 11.

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