Intersectional inequalities in industrial air toxics exposure in the United States.

Environmental justice and health research demonstrate unequal exposure to environmental hazards at the neighborhood-level. We use an innovative method-eco-intersectional multilevel (EIM) modeling-to assess intersectional inequalities in industrial air toxics exposure across US census tracts in 2014. Results reveal stark inequalities in exposure across analytic strata, with a 45-fold difference in average exposure between most and least exposed.

Intersectional environmental justice and population health inequalities: A novel approach.

Drawing on the traditions of environmental justice, intersectionality, and social determinants of health, and using data from the EPA's NATA 2014 estimates of cancer risk from air toxics, we demonstrate a novel quantitative approach to evaluate intersectional environmental health risks to communities: Eco-Intersectional Multilevel (EIM) modeling. Results from previous case studies were found to generalize to national-level patterns, with multiply marginalized tracts with a high percent of Black and Latinx residents, high percent female-headed households, lower educational attainment, and metro location experiencing the highest risk. Overall, environmental health inequalities in cancer risk from air toxics are: (1) experienced intersectionally at the community-level, (2) significant in magnitude, and (3) socially patterned across numerous intersecting axes of marginalization, including axes rarely evaluated such as gendered family structure.

Associations of Continuity and Change in Early Neighborhood Poverty With Adult Cardiometabolic Biomarkers in the United States: Results From the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health, 1995-2008.

Limitations of extant research on neighborhood disadvantage and health include general reliance on point-in-time neighborhood measures and sensitivity to residential self-selection. Using data from the US Census and the 1995-2008 National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health, we applied conventional methods and coarsened exact matching to assess how cardiometabolic health varies among those entering, exiting, or remaining in poor and nonpoor neighborhoods. Within the full sample (n = 11,767), we found significantly higher systolic and diastolic blood pressures among those who entered or consistently lived in poor neighborhoods relative to those who never lived in poor neighborhoods.

Disentangling overlapping influences of neighborhoods and schools on adolescent body mass index.

Objective: To compare the simultaneous influence of schools and neighborhoods on adolescent body mass index (BMI).

Methods: Analyzing data from a nationally representative sample of adolescents in grades 7 to 12 (n = 18,200), cross-classified multilevel modeling was used to examine the fixed and random effects of individuals, schools, and neighborhoods on adolescent BMI. Additionally, the ability of school and neighborhood demographics to explain racial/ethnic disparities in BMI was assessed.

The persistent clustering of adult body mass index by school attended in adolescence.

Background: It is well known that adolescent body mass index (BMI) shows school-level clustering. We explore whether school-level clustering of BMI persists into adulthood.

Methods: Multilevel models nesting young adults in schools they attended as adolescents are fit for 3 outcomes: adolescent BMI, self-report adult BMI and measured adult BMI.