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“Since asthma surveillance data were not available at the census tract level for most of Louisiana, we estimated asthma burden using the inpatient discharge data available through LDH.”  (4)

“Case counts are not provided for CTs with a 2018 population of less than 800 to safeguard privacy.” (4)

“To minimize the need for suppression, inpatient discharge data was aggregated for the three most recent years available (2017–2019) and average annual crude rates were calculated for cases where asthma (ICD-10 code J45) was the primary diagnosis, as well as where asthma was any diagnosis.” (4)

“Spearman’s Rank Correlation was utilized to analyze the correlation between various social and environmental vulnerability factors, COVID-19 incidence, and the measures of asthma risk by CT.” (4)

“This was performed by first ranking the values in each dataset using RANK.AVG function in MS Excel 2016, followed by applying the PEARSON function to compare two datasets. Significance was set at alpha less than 0.05 (α < 0.05), with degrees of freedom (df) equal to two less than the total number of data points represented in both datasets” (4)

The research team works for the Section of Environmental Epidemiology and Toxicology, Office of Public Health, Louisiana Department of Health in Baton Rouge. Team members included Arundhati Bakshi; Shanon Soileau; Collete Stewart; Kate Friedman; Collete Maser; Alexis Williams; Kathleen Aubin; and Alicia Van Doren. 

“Currently, much of the environmental focus of the pandemic remains on PM2.5 levels; however, we noted that higher levels of ozone was consistently associated with higher incidence rates of COVID-19, and it was the only environmental factor that appeared to have an additive effect over SVI on COVID-19 incidence (Fig 1).” (11)

“Specifically, our data show a moderately strong positive correlation between SVI due to minority status/language barrier and three health data variables: asthma hospitalization; estimated asthma prevalence; and cumulative COVID-19 incidence at 3 months (Table 2). Interestingly, SVI measures were either negatively or not significantly correlated COVID-19 incidence at the 9-and 12-month time points, indicating that social vulnerability factors may have played a greater role in COVID-19 spread early in the pandemic, but may have been of diminishing importance as the pandemic wore on (Fig 1 and Table 2).” (9)

Bakshi A, Van Doren A, Maser C, Aubin K, Stewart C, Soileau S, et al. (2022) Identifying Louisiana communities at the crossroads of environmental and social vulnerability, COVID-19, and asthma. PLoS ONE 17(2): e0264336. https:// doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0264336. 

This document uses data resources from the Center for Disease Control/Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (CDC/ATSDR), the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and the Louisiana Department of Health (LDH).

These data resources include the Social Vulnerability Index (2018 - CDC/ATSDR), the NATA Respiratory Hazard Index (EPA 2014), PM2.5level (average annual concentration in ug/m3, EPA 2016), ozone level (summer seasonal average of daily maximum 8-hour concentration in air in parts per billion, EPA 2016), indoor mold concerns reported to IEQES program (average annual number of calls, LDH 2017-2019), cumulative COVID-19 incidence rate at 3-, 6-, 9- and 12-month increments (LDH March 2020 - March 2021), asthma hospitalization (average annual crude rate, where asthma was a primary diagnosis among hospitalization cases, LDH 2017-2019), and estimated asthma prevalence (average annual crude rate, where asthma was any diagnosis among hospitalization cases, LDH 2017-2019).

In this fascinating review, the authors show how environmental justice is reproductive justice (following the water protectors at Standing Rock) and how this intersection reshapes understandings of the environment, embodiment, and exposure. I was particularly interested in the concepts of social and cultural re/production, and how we might think about this in light of Austin's rapid gentrification. They discuss an intersectional approach as a multi-scalar approach, from climate change to chemical exposure in the home - and I think this could be extended to a inter/multi-generational approach to justice (esp given our focus on renewables). The authors show how the RJ framework rethinks the individualism of reproductive choice as the right to conceive and bear children in conditions of social justice and human flourishing - then how does the current energy system (and future energy transitions) negate or create these conditions, and for whom? If we think about biological/cultural reproduction, how do we also incorporate the concept of reproductive labor into our analysis? Finally, I think they make an important point about the harms of documentation, and it would be great to hear everyone's thoughts (Esp those who have participated in earlier field campuses) on what the goal and ethics of our knowledge production are?

Thinking through this article and Vermeylen's, something we might consider in ATX is how we conceptualize community itself. It is so easy in EJ-contexts to make communities our object of study and analysis, which can erase identities and exclusions within them...

How is ecological harm and gentrification experienced by LGBTQ people in Austin? Women? Etcetera?