Panel Paper: Race, Socioeconomic Status, and Lead Concentrations in Urban Soil: Implications for Health Inequities

Thursday, July 23, 2020
Webinar Room 3 (Online Zoom Webinar)

*Names in bold indicate Presenter

Shahir Masri1, Alana MW LeBrón1,2, Michael David Logue1, Enrique Valencia3, Abel Ruiz4, Abigail Reyes5 and Jun Wu1,6, (1)Program in Public Health, University of California, Irvine, (2)Department of Chicano/Latino Studies, University of California, Irvine, (3)Orange County Environmental Justice, (4)Jóvenes Cultivando Cambios, (5)Community Resilience, University of California, Irvine, (6)Center for Occupational and Environmental Health, University of California, Irvine


Background. Communities of color and residents of urban and low-income areas are disparately exposed to lead, a neurotoxin. We apply a community-based participatory research approach to assessing the distribution of soil lead and social vulnerabilities to soil lead exposures across Census tracts in Santa Ana, CA.

Methods. Data were drawn from the ¡Plo-NO Santa Ana! Lead-Free Santa Ana! partnership. Soil samples were collected from 572 locations (n=1,655 samples) in Santa Ana, CA, yielding a high spatial resolution. Soil lead levels were measured using XRF analysis and concentrations were mapped using geographic information system (GIS). Kriging spatial interpolation was used to generate a continuous smoothed map of soil lead concentrations over the study region. American Housing Survey data was used to divide Census tracts into tertiles based on social and economic factors and to assess whether average lead concentrations vary by social and economic factors.

Results. Findings demonstrated regional hotspots of higher soil lead concentrations and inequities across Census tracts. Census tracts with a lower median household income, lower proportion of college educated residents, higher proportion of Latina/o/x residents, and higher proportion of children (< 5 years of age) had higher lead levels than respective Census tracts.

Discussion. This study underscores the need for precautionary measures as it relates to disturbances of the soil, particularly in areas where children play. We discuss community-driven recommendations for social and environmental policies and initiatives to remediate soil lead and prevent and mitigate exposures to lead, with attention to subpopulations at greater risk.

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