Data Dashboard

Narrative Text

Title: Education Level, Pollutant Exposure, and Associated Health Risks in the California Central Valley

Subtitle: A dashboard for Berkeley Public Health students

Data source: CalEnviroScreen (CES) 4.0 (ces4.0_data.csv)

Data pulled for census tracts corresponding to San Joaquin, Stanislaus, Merced, Tulare, Tuolomne, Mariposa, Madera, Fresno, Kings, and Kern counties

Included Variables:

-Education

-Asthma

-Tox. Release

Background: It is well-documented in public health literature that socioeconomic factors, such as education and income level, influence the likelihood that an individual will be exposed to harmful pollutants (Hajat et al., 2015). The California Central Valley is plagued by air pollutants that arise from agricultural burning, traffic emissions, and wildfires and lead to unfavorable health outcomes including asthma and COPD (Rodriguez-Delgado, 2022). Despite the Central Valley’s small geographic range, this research study seeks to answer the question: Do variations in education levels across different Central Valley communities correlate with pollutant exposure and corresponding health risks?

This research study uses the CalEnviroScreen 4.0 dataset, which includes various pollutant exposure levels, health outcomes, and demographic information across all census tracts in California. CalEnviroScreen 4.0 was published in 2021 and uses updated data for all variables (OEHHA, 2021). The study population for this research question is all observations in the CalEnviroScreen 4.0 dataset that correspond to a census tract from the following Central Valley counties: San Joaquin, Stanislaus, Merced, Tulare, Tuolomne, Mariposa, Madera, Fresno, Kings, Kern. This research study assesses education level, rate of ED visits for asthma, and toxin concentrations in these counties.

The results of this research study can support Berkeley Public Health students as they learn about how different socioeconomic factors drive health outcomes in California communities. Further, politically involved students can use the results of this research study as evidence to support advocacy efforts for environmental health policies aimed at lowering air pollution in California.

Results: Figure 1 provides a map of the Central Valley counties included in this research study that have available census tract data. The colors on the map represent the education levels of communities in these counties. Fresno county houses the darkest orange community, meaning it is the community in the study with the highest percentage of residents that have less than a high school diploma. Kern county houses the community with most residents with a high school diploma. Figure 2 compares the rates of asthma-related ED visits between Fresno and Kern county. We can see that Fresno county has higher rates of asthma-related ED visits than Kern county. However, some outliers reveal two areas of Kern county that have higher rates of asthma-related ED visits than the maximum rate in Fresno county. These outliers may alter the distribution for Kern county seen in Figure 2. In Figure 3, we can see that Fresno county has a significantly higher average of toxicity-weighted concentrations of chemicals in the air compared to Kern county.

Based on these findings, we can determine a correlation between less-than-high school education level in a community, community location in a county with high air pollution, and high rates of asthma-related ED visits in the county. However, we cannot say that the education level of the community is what caused the residents to live in a county with high pollutant concentration, and we cannot say that the pollutant concentration causes asthma in the specific community with low educational attainment.

Overall, these findings do support the research question. However, further research needs to be conducted to assess the correlation between education levels, pollutant exposure, and corresponding health risks across all Central Valley counties. Therefore, public health and environmental health students should continue to explore the methods in which socioeconomic status impacts health outcomes, as research in these areas can lead to improved policies to benefit California communities in need.

References:

Hajat, A., Hsia, C., & O’Neill, M. S. (2015). Socioeconomic Disparities and Air Pollution Exposure: a Global Review. Current environmental health reports, 2(4), 440–450. https://doi.org/10.1007/s40572-015-0069-5

OEHHA. (2021). Summary of changes in CalEnviroScreen version 4.0. https://oehha.ca.gov/media/downloads/calenviroscreen/document/calenviroscreen40summaryofchangesf2021.pdf

Rodriguez-Delgado, C. (2022, June 16). California has some of the worst air quality in the country. The problem is rooted in the San Joaquin Valley. PBS. https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/california-has-some-of-the-worst-air-quality-in-the-country-the-problem-is-rooted-in-the-san-joaquin-valley