Table 1: Descriptive Statistics for Study Sample and Excluded Respondents (Community, Crime, and Health
Survey)
Environmental Inequality:
Fact or Fiction?
Marieke Van Willigen, Bob Edwards, and Shannon Lewis
East Carolina University
Contact Information:
Marieke Van Willigen, Ph.D.
Associate Professor
406A Brewster, Department of Sociology
East Carolina University
Greenville, NC 27858
(252) 328-6092
## email not listed ##
Abstract
A growing body of literature examines whether the poor, working class, and people of color are disproportionately
likely to live in environmentally hazardous neighborhoods, with mixed results. Some researchers suggest that
methodological weaknesses are to blame for inconsistent findings. In order to address these concerns, we use
individual-level data from the 1995 Community, Crime, and Health Survey (Ross and Britt, co-PIs) linked with
1990 U.S. Census data and 1995 Toxic Release Inventory (TRI) data. Using these data we are able to test whether
individual characteristics are related to hazard exposure, as population characteristics have been in many previous
studies. We also examine whether patterns of environmental inequality that exist in urban areas hold up in
suburban and rural areas, using multiple measures of environmental hazards. Being Hispanic and family income
are more consistent predictors of waste exposure than race, although race also matters. While the impacts of
individual’s race and family income are explained by neighborhoods characteristics, the association between being
Hispanic and waste exposure is not. We find less inequality in the distribution of waste in metropolitan Chicago
than in the rest of Illinois. Income does not explain racial or ethnic inequality.
Environmental Inequality: Fact or Fiction?
Marieke Van Willigen, Bob Edwards, and Shannon Lewis
East Carolina University