Racial–ethnic disparities in pollution exposure and in consumption of goods and services in the United States are well documented. Some may find it intuitive that, on average, black and Hispanic minorities bear a disproportionate burden from the air pollution caused mainly by non-Hispanic whites, but this effect has not previously been directly established, let alone quantified. Our “pollution inequity” metric is generalizable to other pollution types and provides a simple and intuitive way of expressing a disparity between the pollution that people cause and the pollution to which they are exposed. Our results are timely, given public debate on issues relating to race, equity, and the regulation of pollution.

Published Feb 4, 2019

Tessum, C. W., Apte, J. S., Goodkind, A. L., Muller, N. Z., Mullins, K. A., Paolella, D. A., Polasky, S., Springer, N. P., Thakrar, S. K., Marshall, J. D., & Hill, J. D. (2019). Inequity in consumption of goods and services adds to racial-ethnic disparities in air pollution exposure. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 116(13), 6001–6006. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1818859116