Disproportionate Exposures in Environmental Justice and Other Populations

The Importance of Outliers

Datos Bibliográficos

ID11037586
AutoresMichael Gochfeld (0000-0001-9813-3132, Joanna Burger is with the Division of Life Sciences, Rutgers University, Piscataway, NJ, and the Environmental and Occupational Health Sciences Institute and Consortium for Risk Evaluation With Stakeholder Participation, Piscataway. Michael Gochfeld is with Environmental and Occupational Medicine, University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey–Robert Wood Johnson Medical School, Piscataway.), Joanna Burger (0000-0002-8877-2966, Joanna Burger is with the Division of Life Sciences, Rutgers University, Piscataway, NJ, and the Environmental and Occupational Health Sciences Institute and Consortium for Risk Evaluation With Stakeholder Participation, Piscataway. Michael Gochfeld is with Environmental and Occupational Medicine, University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey–Robert Wood Johnson Medical School, Piscataway.)
Año2011
Volumen101
NúmeroS1
PáginasS53-S63
Fecha de publicación2011-12-01
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessNo
TipoARTICLE
RevistaAmerican Journal of Public Health (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 0090-0036 • E-ISSN: 1541-0048
EditorialAmerican Public Health Association (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.2105/ajph.2011.300121
PMID21551384
PMCIDPMC3222496
OpenAlexW2145980102
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas28
Referencias citadas109

We examined traditional environmental justice populations and other groups whose exposure to contaminants is often disproportionately high. Risk assessment methods may not identify these populations, particularly if they are spatially dispersed. We suggest using a National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey approach to oversample minority communities and develop methods for assessing exposure at different distances from pollution sources; publishing arithmetic and geometric means and full distributions for minority populations; and paying particular attention to high-end exposures. Means may sufficiently characterize populations as a whole but are inadequate in identifying vulnerable groups and subgroups. The number of individuals above the 95th percentile of any distribution may be small and unrepresentative, but these outliers are the ones who need to be protected

Association (psychology) · Distribution (mathematics) · Economic Justice · Environmental health · Environmental justice · Exposure assessment · Geography · National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey · Outlier · Percentile · Political science · Population · Sociology · Statistics · Demography · Environmental Justice and Health Disparities · Heavy Metal Exposure and Toxicity · Law · Mathematics · Medicine · Psychology · Risk Perception and Management