ABSTRACT
The dependent variable is varying degrees of environmental hazards. Insofar as possible, it sought to replicate the environmental harms used in other environmental equity and racism research. The dependent variables consist of factor scales for the following types of environmental harms: air pollution, hazardous waste, solid waste, toxic waste, and water pollution. It selected factor analysis to construct scales of environmental harms for several reasons and isolated a total of thirty-one environmental harms in the areas of air, land, and water pollution at the state level. Air pollution has historically been a mainstay for the study of environmental equity and it also included a state-level measure of solid waste. Toxic waste is also of concern to environmental scholars because of its far-reaching potential as a cause of health problems. Water pollution has been given some attention in the environmental justice literature.
