A Fine-Scale Spatiotemporal Approach to Examining Environmental Inequalities

On 25th April 2018 we had the pleasure of welcomming Yoo Min Park from Department of Geography and Geographic Information Science, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Yoo Min presented her latest work entitled Moving Beyond Residential Neighborhoods: A Fine-Scale Spatiotemporal Approach to Examining Environmental Inequalities.

Abstract

This study examines the effect of racial/ethnic segregation on unequal exposure to air pollution using individual-level travel survey data. It argues that people experience segregation and are exposed to air pollution in multiple geographic contexts of everyday life, including home, workplace, and social/recreational venues. Moving beyond residence-based static approaches, this study proposes a new method for assessing the association between segregation and the disparity in exposure to air pollution at a fine spatiotemporal scale. This approach addresses several methodological problems in residence-based, aggregate-level methods (e.g., the uncertain geographic context problem; the modifiable areal unit problem) and produces more reliable and meaningful findings. The results show that people in the Atlanta metropolitan area (Georgia, USA) experience varying levels of segregation at different times of day depending on where they spend their time. However, both during the daytime and at night, African Americans remain highly segregated in the inner city or inner-ring suburbs, due in part to the limited public transportation system. In these areas, traffic-related air pollution levels are relatively high, which affects their disproportionate burden of air pollution. The findings of this study contribute to advancing an understanding of environmental inequalities and provide more nuanced knowledge for future policy recommendations.