Exploring Uneven Environmental Inequities

• In Event: Environmental Sociology Section Open Call Paper Session

Abstract

Spurred by frontline communities fighting environmental injustice, social scientists have done extensive work identifying how a variety of hazards unequally afflict human groups. The core finding is clear: racially, ethnically, and economically marginalized populations experience greater exposure to environmental bads and diminished access to environmental goods. Still, the extent and nature of inequities varies. Among other aspects, observed environmental inequities differ across localities with different geographies and histories of housing discrimination and population movement; hazards with different biophysical dynamics and regulatory approaches; and studies with different units and extents of analysis. These differences create a complex mosaic in which different communities vary in their distributions of specific hazards and cumulative exposures. Several reviews evaluate broad patterns and methodological issues across studies, but we have been unable to find a review or meta-analysis that fully and systematically evaluates uneven findings. To help address this gap, we conduct a descriptive meta-analysis of patterns and trends in 313 studies of unequal exposures to environmental hazards published between 1975 and 2022. This effort starts from three core questions: What are the patterns and trends in hazards studied, research design, and geographic focus in studies of environmental inequity? What is the extent of variation in inequity of exposure across hazard, locale, and research design? What conditions are linked to greater or lesser inequity in hazard exposure?

Authors

• John Aloysius Zinda, Cornell University

• Sun Moon

• Maya Hamandi, Cornell University

• Stephanie Gallent