Story at a glance
- Out of a survey administered to 1,000 U.S. households, only 37 percent of respondents believe that Black Americans are more likely to be exposed to pollution than white Americans.
- There are a number of studies that show people of color in the United States are more likely to be exposed to pollution than white Americans.
- One study published in 2021 found that people of color are more likely to be exposed to harmful fine particle air pollution than whites and that Black Americans are exposed to “higher-than-average” concentrations of pollution from all sectors.
Just over a third of United States households believe Black Americans are more likely to experience environmental pollution, a recent study from Washington State University found.
There is a wealth of research to support that people of color are exposed to more pollution than white Americans. One study published in the academic journal Science Advances last year found that Black Americans are exposed to “higher-than-average” concentrations of pollution from all sources like agriculture, construction, industry and vehicle emissions.
The new report—compiled based on AmeriSpeak omnibus survey given to 1,000 U.S. households in May of 2020—found that only 37 percent of American households believe that Black Americans are more likely to be exposed to pollution than white Americans.
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“A very small number of people in the U.S. believe that environmental inequality along racial lines exists, said Dylan Bugden, a WSU sociologist and lead author of the study. “This is a clear challenge for the environmental justice movement to try to convince the public that this is real.”
Bugden was also able to determine that most respondents, 59 percent, believed that poverty was at the root of environmental injustice and not race.
The study also determined respondents’ general feelings towards Black Americans by asking questions on a “racial resentment scale” like whether they believe slavery has made it historically much harder for Black Americans to advance.
As it turns out, Bugden found a strong link between respondents who scored high in racial resentment and not believing that race plays a role in environmental inequality or that those inequalities are unfair.
The study found that only 33 percent of U.S. households believe that this environmental inequality is unfair—meaning they believe that it is the responsibility of those living near areas with high pollution to move away.
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