Urban Studies and Planning Commons^™

An Index For Assessing Demographic Inequalities In Cumulative Environmental Hazards With Application To Los Angeles, California, Bhavna Shamasunder, Jason G. Su, Rachel Morello-Frosch, Bill M. Jesdale, Amy D. Kyle, Michael Jerrett

Bhavna Shamasunder

Researchers in environmental justice contend that low-income communities and communities of color face greater impacts from environmental hazards. This is also of concern for policy makers. In this context, our paper has two principal objectives. First, we propose a method for creating an index capable of summarizing racial−ethnic and socioeconomic inequalities from the impact of cumulative environmental hazards. Second, we apply the index to Los Angeles County to illustrate the potential applications and complexities of its implementation. Individual environmental inequality indices are calculated based on unequal shares of environmental hazards for racial−ethnic groups and socioeconomic positions. The illustrated hazards include …