1236800 (Marshall). Outdoor air pollution is among the top 10 causes of mortality in the U.S. (and is the largest environmental cause), annually responsible for ~1% of total deaths. Those health risks are not evenly distributed among the population. An important aspect of sustainable development is to understand how urban design and urban environments can help meet social and ?fairness? goals, including avoiding large imbalances in environmental risks among subpopulations?especially along lines of race or income. This project will uncover new relationships among air pollution, demographic attributes relevant to environmental justice, and the spatial layout of urban areas; and will develop an education and outreach program to engage disadvantaged youths. Objectives are to (1) characterize spatial patterns in air pollution concentrations throughout the U.S., and over time, (2) characterize spatial relationships between air pollution and demographic attributes relevant to environmental justice (EJ), covering multiple spatial scales (national, state, county, and urban); (3) identify how shifts in the spatial layout of cities relate to air pollution metrics relevant for EJ; and (4) integrate research findings into education and outreach. The research approach uses an air pollution model that incorporates available demographic data (US Census) and pollution measurements by the U.S. EPA, satellite-based measures of air pollution, and information about land uses (e.g., roads, built-up areas, parks). The model offers spatial precision and therefore provides a good basis for predicting how concentrations vary among communities. New knowledge generated will be integrated into education and outreach activities, including a program to engage high school students in disadvantaged communities and challenge them to investigate and address EJ conditions locally. Targeted results will generate new knowledge relevant to EJ conditions, how they are changing, and how they relate to urban form. Research and outreach activities will identify and test potential solutions. The project will provide observational evidence relating air pollution and demographic attributes such as race and income; and, will explore how those relationships (i) vary with spatial scale of analysis (from within-urban to national-scale) and over time, and (ii) correlate with the spatial layout of urban areas. The combination of available data, including new satellite measurements, with cutting-edge, high-resolution pollution models will provide a novel approach for understanding these issues. It is anticipated that findings will advance theory and practice in environmental sustainability by exploring a long-term factor influencing air pollution (urban form) and by uncovering equity aspects of environmental impacts. The high-precision air pollution models to be developed have the potential to be useful to researchers in outside fields such as environmental epidemiology and environmental economics. Findings will be integrated into existing curricula and programs aimed at increasing science and engineering enrollment of underrepresented students. A new program will challenge students to explore community-scale solutions. Research findings, quantifying conditions relevant to EJ for cities and regions throughout U.S., will be shared directly with local, state, and national environmental policy makers. An interactive website will allow the public to explore spatially precise estimates of long-term air pollution in their neighborhood.
