Abstract
Environmental inequality scholarship has paid little attention to the disproportional exposure of immigrants in the United States (U.S.) to unfavorable environmental conditions. This study investigates whether new international migrants in the U.S. are exposed to environmental hazards and how this pattern varies among immigrant subpopulations (e.g., Hispanics, Asian, European). We combine sociodemographic information from the American Community Survey with toxicity-weighted chemical concentrations (Toxics Release Inventory) to model the relationship between toxin exposure and the relative population of recent immigrants across Public Use Microdata Areas (PUMAs, n = 2054) during 2005–2011. Results from spatial panel models show that immigrants tend to be less exposed to toxins, suggesting resilience instead of vulnerability. This pattern was pronounced among immigrants from Europe and Latin America (excluding Mexico). However, our results revealed that Mexican immigrants are disproportionately exposed to environmental hazards in wealthy regions. © 2017 Elsevier Ltd
Original language | English |
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Pages (from-to) | 60-69 |
Number of pages | 10 |
Journal | Applied Geography |
Volume | 81 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - 2017 |
Bibliographical note
Cited By :1Export Date: 26 December 2018
Correspondence Address: Bakhtsiyarava, M.; University of Minnesota, Department of Geography, Environment and Society & Minnesota Population Center, 225 19th Avenue South, 50 Willey Hall, United States; email: mariaolbak@gmail.com
Keywords
- Environmental hazards
- Environmental inequality
- International immigrants
- Spatial panel models
- Toxin release
- USA
- concentration (composition)
- environmental hazard
- immigrant
- international migration
- pollution
- toxicity
- toxin
- United States