A Critical Appraisal of ‘A GIS-environmental justice analysis of particulate air pollution in Hamilton, Canada’
Jerrett et al.’s (2001) research article A GIS-environmental justice analysis of particulate air pollution in Hamilton, Canada used an environmental justice/equity framework to explore the relationship between socio-economic status and exposure to air pollution. Two research questions were addressed: (1) Are populations with lower socioeconomic status, compared with people of higher socioeconomic status, more likely to be exposed to higher levels of particulate air pollution in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada? And (2) How sensitive is the association between levels of particulate air pollution and socioeconomic status to specification of exposure estimates or statistical models?
By using Hamilton’s air monitoring network which recorded total suspended particulate data (particulate matter with a diameter of 50 micrometers (um) or less) Jerrett et al. created two isopleth surfaces using universal kriging. The first was an exposure surface which found the 10 year geometric mean TSP concentration over Hamilton. The second was a probability surface which showed the probability that an area would exceed the 24 hour air quality threshold of 120 um. Then using ordinary least squares (OLS) and simultaneous auto-regressive models (SAR) they related air quality levels with various socio-economic variables. Their results aligned with their expectations that the areas exposed to the poorest air quality had lower incomes and lower residential retail values in the OLS and SAR models. We would assign this paper an 8 out of 10 as we believed the argument and the conclusions, while not unexpected, were valid. This work would have achieved a higher score when it was first published in 2001, but some of its methodology could be updated to include exploratory regression and GWR.
Reference
Jerrett, M., Burnett, R. T., Kanaroglou, P., Eyles, J., Finkelstein, N., Giovis, C., & Brook, J. R. (2001). A GIS–Environmental Justice Analysis of Particulate Air Pollution in Hamilton, Canada. Environment and Planning A,33(6), 955-973. doi:10.1068/a33137