Environmental racism and air pollution: Pre and post the COVID-19 economic shutdown

Abstract

Decades of research demonstrates that minoritized groups are disproportionately affected by swathes of harmful pollutants, including air pollution, even controlling for low income. Would significantly reducing individual car traffic help reduce the EJ gap? The systemic shock of the COVID-19 economic shutdown, with accompanied reduction in car use, can be exploited to analyze this question. Kerr and colleagues ask this question for nitrogen dioxide (NO2), use satellite data and categorical differences, and find that majority-minoritized tracts on average benefited more from the shutdown, but the least-White tracts still were significantly worse off than the most-White tracts. We further explore this question for PM2.5, one of the most harmful air pollutants, using Geographic Information System (GIS) methods to combine several different federal datasets to compare pre- and post-COVID-19 shutdown. Analyzing Census tracts, we find (1) little evidence of discrimination in the placement of PM2.5 sensors, (2) evidence of the standard EJ disproportionality for PM2.5 in both pre-shutdown 2019 and post-shutdown 2020, but (3) evidence of disproportionate improvement for Asians, Hispanics, and Native Americans, with concerning indications of possible harm to African Americans. This implies, as do the findings in Kerr and colleagues' study, that policies that limit gasoline-powered car use can reduce air pollution but are unlikely to importantly alleviate US environmental racism affecting African Americans.