Timothy W Collins
Biographic Data
| ID | 97839 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Timothy W Collins |
| GIVEN NAMES | Timothy W |
| FAMILY NAME | Collins |
| SIGNATURE | COLLINS T W |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Utah |
| ORCID | 0000-0003-3200-616X |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 99 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 372 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 99 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1977 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 11 |
Misrecognition or heightened awareness? The role of local context in perceptions of environmental inequality across social groups
Public perceptions of environmental harm distributions reflect public consciousness about social inequalities and can influence social movements and policy. Yet existing scholarship suggests the question: Do groups disproportionately exposed to harms experience heightened awareness of environmental inequality, or do they misrecognize their levels of exposure compared to other groups, due, for example, to local narratives that attenuate perception…
Mentoring as care: Examining power and gender in faculty-undergraduate student relationships
Faculty mentoring has become increasingly vital as U.S. universities confront unprecedented challenges, yet sociologists have neglected to examine this work through the lens of care labor. Through in-depth interviews with 44 strategically sampled undergraduate students who conducted STEM-related research, we reconceptualize faculty mentoring as complex care relationships embedded within institutional hierarchies. Rather than treating gender as a …
Graduate school choice: How STEM students in the USA decide where to enroll
There is a dearth of research on which factors students consider when selecting among STEM graduate programs. This is an important knowledge gap because of the value of graduate STEM education to individuals and society. We leverage interview data collected in 2022 from rising seniors after they completed summer undergraduate research programs at different US universities and again in 2023 when they were in their first semester of graduate school…
Concerns About the Drying Great Salt Lake: What Do People Care About and Who Cares the Most
Research on public opinion and climate change is extensive, yet we lack knowledge about how concern varies across social groups and those with varied experiences with regard to multiple dimensions of impact (e.g., economics, health, recreation) of a local climate change-related issue. Utah’s drying Great Salt Lake provides a unique case in which to examine this. We collected survey data with Salt Lake County residents ( n = 515). Multivariable st…
Comparing methods for measuring park access and equity using US census microdata in metropolitan Miami
Knowledge from prior park equity studies has been limited by differences in the spatial analytic techniques applied to measure park accessibility, a lack of systematic methods comparisons, and overreliance on aggregated spatial data. Our study addresses these issues using individual-level, restricted-access US Census American Community Survey microdata ( n = 339,000) from 2015 to 2019 to compare (a) alternative techniques for measuring access to …
Climate Gaps: Disparities in residential air conditioning access across ten US metropolitan areas
Different pathways to greening in gentrifying communities: Power, transformative projects, and the green gentrification cycle
Contextualizing food apartheid through a racial capitalism analysis: The case of Utah's Wasatch Front, USA
Spatial analysis of disaster resilience research: A bibliometric study
The Silver Lining of the Covid-19 Pandemic: Undergraduate Research Experiences, Mentorship, and Posttraumatic Growth
Does gentrification precede and follow greening? Evidence about the green gentrification cycle in Los Angeles and Chicago
Harmful dust from drying lakes: Preserving Great Salt Lake (USA) water levels decreases ambient dust and racial disparities in population exposure
Anxiety and depression after winter storm Uri: Cascading disasters and mental health inequities
Comparing GIS-Based Flood Resilience Models in a Developing Nation: A Case Study in Bangladesh
Floods have a devastating impact on developing nations. The focus of current resilience models is predominantly developed countries, and less is known regarding how they might perform in other contexts. This paper presents a comparative case study in Bangladesh using two established hazard resilience models: the Disaster Resilience of Place (DROP) Model and the Spatially Explicit Resilience-Vulnerability (SERV) model. Using publicly available dat…
A novel approach for assessing flood risk with machine learning and multi-criteria decision-making methods
Climate change greatly escalates forest disturbance risks to US property values
Anthropogenic climate change is projected to drive increases in climate extremes and climate-sensitive ecosystem disturbances such as wildfire with enormous economic impacts. Understanding spatial and temporal patterns of risk to property values from climate-sensitive disturbances at national and regional scales and from multiple disturbances is urgently needed to inform risk management and policy efforts. Here, we combine models for three major …
Air quality sensors and distributional environmental justice: A case study of Salt Lake County, Utah
Ambient fine particulate matter (PM2.5) causes health problems and is monitored by U.S. federal and state governments. Due to gaps in public monitoring, people rely on non-regulatory air quality monitoring networks (NAQMNs), comprised of low-cost PM2.5 sensors, to obtain air quality information. While environmental justice studies have examined social disparities in PM2.5 and sensor distribution, none have examined disparities in university-purch…
Social Disparities in the Duration of Power and Piped Water Outages in Texas After Winter Storm Uri
We assessed sociodemographic disparities in basic service disruptions caused by Winter Storm Uri in Texas. We collected data through a bilingual telephone survey conducted in July 2021 (n = 753). Being Black, having children, and renting one’s residence were associated with longer power outage durations; being Black was also associated with longer water outages. Our findings highlight the need to plan for and ameliorate inequitable service outage…
The green gentrification cycle
Significant research has shown that gentrification often follows the implementation of greening initiatives (e.g. new parks) in cities worldwide, in what scholars have called ‘green gentrification’. A few other studies in the Global North suggest that greening initiatives might be disproportionately located in disadvantaged neighbourhoods that are gentrifying as opposed to disadvantaged areas experiencing continuous disinvestment. Building on the…
Federally Overlooked Flood Risk Inequities in Houston, Texas: Novel Insights Based on Dasymetric Mapping and State-of-the-Art Flood Modeling
In the United States, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) delineates 100-year flood zones to define risks, regulate flood insurance premiums, and inform flood management. Evidence indicates that FEMA flood maps are incomplete, calling much of our current knowledge of U.S. flood hazard inequities into question. We use a state-of-the-art flood hazard model and census tract-level dasymetrically mapped sociodemographic data to examine floo…
Environmental Injustice, Tree Canopy Cover, and Academic Proficiency at Utah Public Primary Schools
Findings suggest targeting carefully designed tree planting efforts at socially disadvantaged schools and testing interventions involving tree planting and changes in academic proficiency
A US National Study of Barriers to Science Training Experienced by Undergraduate Students during Covid-19
Undergraduate research is a high-impact practice on college campuses. How the COVID-19 pandemic has affected undergraduate researchers' progress is poorly understood. We examine how demographics, academic characteristics, research disruptions and faculty mentorship are associated with four barriers to research progress. Data are drawn from a survey of over 1000 undergraduate student researchers across the US. We examine students who actively cont…
Redlining, racism and food access in US urban cores
When Not Implemented Communally, Citizen Science Efforts May Reflect, Reinforce, and Potentially Exacerbate Environmental Injustice
We Need Environmental Health Justice Research and Action for LGBTQ+ People
Marginalization, Facilitation, and the Production of Unequal Risk: The 2006 Paso del Norte Floods
Drawing upon insights from the field of urban political ecology, this article extends the critical hazards concept of marginalization by incorporating a relational focus on facilitation . Facilitation connotes the institutionally mediated process that enables powerful geographical groups of people to minimize negative environmental externalities and appropriate positive environmental externalities in particular places, with unjust socioenvironmen…
The production of unequal risk in hazardscapes: An explanatory frame applied to disaster at the US–Mexico border
Asian Americans and disproportionate exposure to carcinogenic hazardous air pollutants: A national study
Understanding environmental health inequalities through comparative intracategorical analysis: Racial/ethnic disparities in cancer risks from air toxics in El Paso County, Texas
Environmental injustice and sexual minority health disparities: A national study of inequitable health risks from air pollution among same-sex partners
Downscaling Environmental Justice Analysis: Determinants of Household-Level Hazardous Air Pollutant Exposure in Greater Houston
Environmental justice (EJ) research has relied on ecological analyses of coarse-scale areal units to determine whether particular populations are disproportionately burdened by toxic risks. This article advances quantitative EJ research by (1) examining whether statistical associations found for geographic units translate to relationships at the household level; (2) testing competing explanations for distributional injustices never before investi…
Immigration, mobility, and environmental injustice: A comparative study of Hispanic people’s residential decision-making and exposure to hazardous air pollutants in Greater Houston, Texas
Exploring patterns of environmental injustice in the Global South: Maquiladoras in Ciudad Juárez, Mexico
Exploring the Environmental Justice Implications of Hurricane Harvey Flooding in Greater Houston, Texas
Objectives. To assess the environmental justice implications of flooding from Hurricane Harvey in Greater Houston, Texas, we analyzed whether the areal extent of flooding was distributed inequitably with respect to race, ethnicity, and socioeconomic status, after controlling for relevant explanatory factors. Methods. Our study integrated cartographic information from Harvey’s Inundation Footprint, developed by the US Federal Emergency Management …
Hazardous air pollutants and flooding: A comparative interurban study of environmental injustice
Sexual Orientation, Gender, and Environmental Injustice: Unequal Carcinogenic Air Pollution Risks in Greater Houston
Disparate residential hazard exposures based on disadvantaged gender status (e.g., among female-headed households) have been documented in the distributive environmental justice literature, yet no published studies have examined whether disproportionate environmental risks exist based on minority sexual orientation. To address this gap, we use data from the US Census, American Community Survey and the Environmental Protection Agency at the 2010 c…
Hispanic Immigrants' Vulnerabilities to Flood and Hurricane Hazards in Two United States Metropolitan Areas
Research reveals that disasters are disproportionately debilitating for marginalized social groups. Numerous studies have examined racial/ethnic dimensions of disaster vulnerability, but few have focused on Hispanic immigrants. More research on Hispanic immigrants is needed, since they constitute a major component of the Hispanic population—the largest and fastest‐growing minority group in the U.S.—and because they experience distinctive cultural…
Hispanic heterogeneity and environmental injustice: Intra-ethnic patterns of exposure to cancer risks from traffic-related air pollution in Miami
Hurricane Harvey and people with disabilities: Disproportionate exposure to flooding in Houston, Texas
Cancer risks from exposure to vehicular air pollution: A household level analysis of intra-ethnic heterogeneity in Miami, Florida
Quantitative environmental justice (EJ) research has relied on aggregated data from census units to determine disproportionate hazard exposure. Additionally, variables typically used to analyze ethnic inequities in exposure (e.g., percent Hispanic) are too broad and assume a degree of homogeneity that may not exist, given the diversity of ethnic minority populations. We address these limitations through a study that utilizes primary household lev…
Fate of the verde: Water, environmental conflict, and the politics of scale in Arizona’s central highlands
Influences on Wildfire Hazard Exposure in Arizona's High Country
Based on the case of wildfire hazards in Arizona forests, this article addresses the question: What influences hazard exposure? Like other locales in the U.S. West, the study area has developed as large wildfires have occurred with increasing frequency. Management interventions have traditionally been based on the hypothesis that unsafe conditions result from inadequate residential knowledge of wildfire hazards. Findings from a household-level mu…
The green gentrification cycle
Significant research has shown that gentrification often follows the implementation of greening initiatives (e.g. new parks) in cities worldwide, in what scholars have called ‘green gentrification’. A few other studies in the Global North suggest that greening initiatives might be disproportionately located in disadvantaged neighbourhoods that are gentrifying as opposed to disadvantaged areas experiencing continuous disinvestment. Building on the…
Redlining, racism and food access in US urban cores
Environmental Injustice and Religion: Outdoor Air Pollution Disparities in Metropolitan Salt Lake City, Utah
The distributive environmental justice literature has expanded beyond examining only race- and class-based injustices, but no studies have focused on religion’s influence on disparate environmental risks. We address that gap using data from the decennial U.S. Census, American Community Survey, and Environmental Protection Agency for 2010 census tracts to examine a proxy measure of Mormon prevalence, racial and ethnic composition, and socioeconomi…
The burden of carcinogenic air toxics among Asian Americans in four US metro areas
Neighborhood context and the Hispanic health paradox: Differential effects of immigrant density on children׳s wheezing by poverty, nativity and medical history
Sonic injustice: Disparate residential exposures to transport noise from road and aviation sources in the continental United States
The Durability of Immigration-Related Barriers to Health Care Access for Hispanics Across Generations
Conventional manners of operationalizing generational status in studies of health care access in the United States implicitly assume that individuals assimilate into U.S. culture by the 3rd generation. This limits understandings of immigrant health care access as it remains unknown if disparities persist beyond the 3rd generation. Survey data from caretakers of Hispanic schoolchildren in El Paso (Texas, USA; n = 1,568) were utilized in generalize…
Ancestry-Based Intracategorical Injustices in Carcinogenic Air Pollution Exposures in the United States
Previous studies of US environmental inequalities have focused on racial/ethnic differences in air pollutant exposure. Few have applied an intracategorical framework, which enables the identification of within-group differences through the examination of subgroups. We applied this framework to examine exposure disparities between 26 ancestry/ethnic origin groups within five US racial/ethnic categories. Data come from the US Census, American Commu…
Structural Stability and Morphogenesis: An Outline of a General Theory of Models
Social Science Research and the Microcomputer
During the era of the mainframe computer, 1946-1976, sociologists wholeheartedly embraced computer technology as an adjunct to quantitative research methods. The nature of the technology and the resultant structure by which most sociologists gained access to computers lent itself to several undesirable side effects. However, the undeniable calculational power of the technology was enough to outweigh those disadvantages, at least for the mainstrea…
Households, forests, and fire hazard vulnerability in the American West: A case study of a California community
Due to amplified biophysical risks, rapid population growth, and inadequacies of existing political mechanisms, wildland—urban interface (WUI) fire hazards have become increasingly acute throughout the American West. Using a case study approach, I test the applicability of four social determinants of household level WUI fire hazard vulnerability in the community of Forest Ranch, California. Previous studies have independently identified (1) risk …
Unequal Impacts of Downtown Redevelopment: The Case of Stadium Building in Phoenix, Arizona
The public finance rationale for building sports stadiums has been assessed through city-level impact analyses. Conclusions suggest that stadiums do not typically produce aggregate economic benefits for cities that build them. An argument that stadiums will locally revitalize declining central cities continues to be made by private-public developers, yet questions about local impacts of stadium building have been inadequately studied. Bank One Ba…
Exploring patterns of environmental injustice in the Global South: Maquiladoras in Ciudad Juárez, Mexico
Fate of the verde: Water, environmental conflict, and the politics of scale in Arizona’s central highlands
Influences on Wildfire Hazard Exposure in Arizona's High Country
Based on the case of wildfire hazards in Arizona forests, this article addresses the question: What influences hazard exposure? Like other locales in the U.S. West, the study area has developed as large wildfires have occurred with increasing frequency. Management interventions have traditionally been based on the hypothesis that unsafe conditions result from inadequate residential knowledge of wildfire hazards. Findings from a household-level mu…
The production of unequal risk in hazardscapes: An explanatory frame applied to disaster at the US–Mexico border
No Safe Place: Environmental Hazards & Injustice along Mexico's Northern Border
This article examines spatial relationships between environmental hazards (i.e., pork feed lots, brick kilns, final assembly plants and a rail line) and markers of social marginality in Ciudad Juárez, Mexico. Juárez represents an opportunity for researchers to test for patterns of injustice in a recently urbanizing metropolis of the Global South. We use spatial-econometric modeling to predict the four unique hazard variables and a composite hazar…
Understanding environmental health inequalities through comparative intracategorical analysis: Racial/ethnic disparities in cancer risks from air toxics in El Paso County, Texas
Marginalization, Facilitation, and the Production of Unequal Risk: The 2006 Paso del Norte Floods
Drawing upon insights from the field of urban political ecology, this article extends the critical hazards concept of marginalization by incorporating a relational focus on facilitation . Facilitation connotes the institutionally mediated process that enables powerful geographical groups of people to minimize negative environmental externalities and appropriate positive environmental externalities in particular places, with unjust socioenvironmen…
Environmental Injustices in Transnational Context: Urbanization and Industrial Hazards in El Paso/Ciudad Juárez
The sister cities of El Paso, Texas and Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua form one of the largest manufacturing complexes in the world, and provide a unique context in which to examine transnational patterns of environmental injustice. In this paper, we explore residential patterns of environmental injustice related to the location of industrial facilities (ie maquiladoras and facilities regulated by the Toxics Release Inventory) in the El Paso-Juárez met…
Using Visual Images to Achieve Environmental Justice: A Case Study of the Asarco Copper Smelter in El Paso, Texas
Little research has focused on the use of visual imagery in struggles for environmental justice (EJ). This article contributes to knowledge by gauging respondents' reactions to two images used in a recent conflict surrounding the proposed reopening of a copper smelter owned by the American Smelting and Refining Company (ASARCO) in El Paso, Texas. After viewing the images, respondents voiced concern about environmental injustices and expressed int…
Cultural landscapes: Balancing nature and heritage in preservation practice
Cultural landscapes: balancing nature and heritage in preservation practice, edited by Richard Longstreth, Minneapolis, University of Minnesota Press, 2008, 218 pp. The complexities of community de
Hispanic Health Disparities After a Flood Disaster: Results of a Population-Based Survey of Individuals Experiencing Home Site Damage in El Paso (Texas, USA)
Ecosystem planning in Florida: Solving regional problems through local decision-making
Ecosystem planning in Florida: solving regional problems through local decision-making." Community Development, 43(5), pp. 678–679
Spatial Scale and Hazard Perception: An Exploratory Analysis
This study tests the relationship between spatial scale and hazard perception, accounting for selected sociodemographic and property-related factors. Results reveal significant relationships between spatial scale and wildfire hazard perceptions of survey respondents from Arizona's White Mountains. Hazard perception increased across four ascending spatial scalar levels (from home structure to community levels). Relationships between two (of eight)…
Hispanic heterogeneity and environmental injustice: Intra-ethnic patterns of exposure to cancer risks from traffic-related air pollution in Miami
Mapping vulnerability to climate change-related hazards: Children at risk in a US–Mexico border metropolis
Social and Spatial Inequities in Exposure to Flood Risk in Miami, Florida
Although environmental justice (EJ) research in the United States has traditionally focused on technological hazards such as air pollution or hazardous waste, the adverse and unequal impacts of Hurricane Katrina have prompted researchers to examine the EJ implications of natural events such as hurricanes and floods. This paper contributes to this emerging literature on EJ and social vulnerability to natural hazards by analyzing racial/ethnic and …
Social Disparities in Children’s Respiratory Health in El Paso, Texas
The objectives of this study were to assess prevalence of children's respiratory health conditions and to measure and describe social disparities in children's respiratory problems and access to health resources for asthma/wheezing management. Data were collected through a cross-sectional, observational mail survey of all primary caretakers of 4th and 5th grade children in El Paso Independent School District (El Paso, TX, USA). 6295 primary caret…
Can Economic Deprivation Protect Health? Paradoxical Multilevel Effects of Poverty on Hispanic Children’s Wheezing
Prior research suggests that economic deprivation has a generally negative influence on residents' health. We employ hierarchical logistic regression modeling to test if economic deprivation presents respiratory health risks or benefits to Hispanic children living in the City of El Paso (Texas, USA) at neighborhood- and individual-levels, and whether individual-level health effects of economic deprivation vary based on neighborhood-level economic…
Neighborhood context and the Hispanic health paradox: Differential effects of immigrant density on children׳s wheezing by poverty, nativity and medical history
Hazardous air pollutants and flooding: A comparative interurban study of environmental injustice
Homicide and Social Disorganization on the Border: Implications for Latino and Immigrant Populations
Objective We advance social disorganization theory by examining homicides disaggregated by motive and gang relation and by using data from El Paso, Texas—a predominantly Latino city with high levels of immigration and poverty. Methods We analyze homicide data from the El Paso Police Department's detective logs, 1985–1995, as well as data from the 1990 U.S. Decennial Census. Results Key measures of social disorganization tend to be associated with…
Geography (71 works) · Sociology (54 works) · Medicine (50 works) · Political science (48 works) · Environmental health (44 works) · Environmental Justice and Health Disparities (42 works) · Demography (38 works) · Population (35 works) · Air Quality and Health Impacts (32 works) · Demography (31 works)