Assessment of Sociodemographic Disparities in Environmental Exposure Might be Erroneous due to Neighborhood Effect Averaging: Implications for Environmental Inequality Research

This paper examines the neighborhood effect averaging problem (NEAP) in the evaluation of sociodemographic disparities in people’s air pollution exposures in Los Angeles using GIScience methods and activity-travel diary data of 3790 individuals. Spatial regression model results indicate that assessments of sociodemographic disparities in people’s air pollution exposures are erroneous when people’s daily mobility is ignored because of the different manifestations of neighborhood effect averaging for different social/racial groups. Therefore, to avoid erroneous conclusions in environmental inequality research, it would be critical to consider the NEAP in studies of