It’s not just Flint: Environmental racism is slowly killing blacks across America | theGrio:
Another report by the Environmental Justice and Health Alliance for Chemical Policy Reform, Coming Clean, and the Center for Effective Government also sheds lights on the interconnectedness between race and chemical disasters. The 2014 report titled “Who’s in Danger? A Demographic Analysis of Chemical Disaster Vulnerability”, shows that more than 134 million Americans live within danger zones around 3,433 chemical facilities. The report also found that 3.8 million live within “fenceline” areas or zones that present greater danger; thus leaving residents near those areas less time to evacuate in an event of a chemical crisis.
In regards to black and Latino communities dwelling in these areas, the study shows that the “percentage of blacks in the fenceline zones is 75% greater than for the U.S. as a whole, while the percentage of Latinos in the fenceline zones is 60% greater than for the U.S. as a whole.”
A University of Michigan study also details that minorities on average are exposed to 38 percent percent higher levels of nitrogen dioxide – which is produced by cars and construction equipment – than whites. The findings show that the exposure of increased nitrogen oxide is linked to asthma and heart attacks. According to the Centers for Disease Control, from 2001 to 2009, the greatest rise in asthma rates (a 50 percent increase) was among black children. In 2011, the asthma rate for African-Americans was 47 percent higher than it was for whites.
Approximately nine Americans die from asthma daily.
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