Abstract
Abstract
Several South Carolina (SC) communities are overburdened by pollution and may suffer from environmental health disparities. To address these disparities, improvements in screening approaches are needed to understand and mitigate risk. The purpose of this study was to develop a cumulative stressors and resiliency index (CSRI) that includes environmental stressors and resiliency buffers to rank human health and environmental risks at the census tract level in SC. We performed principal component analysis on variable subcategories to reduce the proposed indicators to 20 that reflected environmental stress and resiliency in communities impacted by environmental injustice. CSRI scores (0–100) were computed at the census tract level and high-risk census tracts were identified as CSRI scores in the 90th percentile. We performed a one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) on CSRI scores by Environmental Affairs (EA) region and linear regression for percent non-white and CSRI scores. Choropleth maps were developed in ArcMap 10.5 using natural breaks to visualize spatial relationships. CSRI scores ranged from 7.4 to 64.0. The mean CSRI score for SC was 29.1, which was lower than the mean score for Upstate (35.2) and Midlands (31.7) regions. The one-way ANOVA results indicated a statistically significant difference in CSRI scores by EA region (p < 0.0001) except between the Lowcountry and Pee Dee regions [95% CI −1.53 to 2.68]. Based on the regression results, a one-unit increase in the percentage of non-white populations per census tract increased CSRI scores by roughly 6.1%. The results of our study support the inclusion of resilience factors in environmental justice assessments.
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