This data is from CalenviroScreen 4.0 from the California Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment (OEHHA) and provides information on the multiple sources of pollution in all California Counties. Pollution indicators include the CES 4.0 score, ozone, lead, pesticides, PM2.5, pollution burden, etc. as well as health and sociodemographic indicators such as asthma rates, cardiovacular disease low birth weight, population, race/ethnicity and age. The dataset was released in 2021 and used the Census Bureau 2010 boundaries for census tracts. Population and sociodemographic information were from 2019, while pollution indicators varied in data collection from 2011-2019.
Research question: Is there a relationship between asthma rates, air pollution and poverty rates in different California counties?
This question is important to investigate as air pollution can have detrimental effects on health and investigating the poverty levels of various counties can provide insight on areas most burdened by air pollution but unable to address it due to financial resources. These visualizations are meant to inspire individuals, advocacy groups, and the state government to action and provide funding opportunities to help address air pollution burden in the poorest counties.
The scatterplot on poverty and PM 2.5 concentration in California shows a positive correlation between poverty and PM 2.5, with California Counties with the higher average of percent poverty also had higher average PM 2.5 concentration. Tulare, Kern, Kings, Fresno, Merced, and San Joaquin counties are some counties with an average percent poverty greater than 40% and average annual PM 2.5 concentration above 11.
When isolating the counties with a PM 2.5 concentration over 10 and analyzing it by the age-adjusted asthma rate, San Joaquin, Fresno, Merced, and Kings County had the highest age-adjusted rate of asthma. Merced experienced the average highest rate of asthma at 88.5 with an average PM 2.5 concentration of 11.5. While Merced does not the have the highest average PM 2.5 concentration, Merced has the highest poverty percent, with 47.3% of the population of Merced county living two times below the federal poverty level. This indicates that after a certain threshold of average PM 2.5 concentration, the population of poorer counties are at higher risk of experiencing higher rates of asthma attacks due to constraints on financial resources. In addition, poverty is a social determinant of health and often times, poorer counties have lack of access to healthcare, higher rates of unemployment, and inability to address the built environment due to lack of resources and political sway. To help these counties, the state, county, and local government need to collaborate to devise new strategies to help address air pollution in the Central Valley.
calenviroscreen40resultsdatadictionary.xlsx