This story was first published Karmatters.
The system California uses to screen areas at risk of environmental damage is highly subjective and flawed, potentially resulting in communities missing out on billions of dollars in funding. According to new research.
The study was conducted by researchers who started the project at Stanford University and looked at tools used by the California Environmental Protection Agency. Developed in 2013 as “the first comprehensive statewide environmental health screening tool” to identify communities. bear a disproportionate burden of pollution.
Communities designated by the system as „disadvantaged'', called CalEnviroScreen, can qualify for significant government and private funding. The tool has been used to specify large swaths of the Central Valley, communities around the ports of Long Beach and Los Angeles, and neighborhoods in Bay Area cities such as Richmond and Oakland.
Researchers found that the screening tool utilized a small number of health problems, which could lead to bias in which communities were designated. About 16% of the state's census tracts could be ranked differently due to EnviroScreen's model changes, according to the study.
This system raises issues of fairness as it can be biased in favor of certain groups over others and can cause groups to compete for funds in what is essentially a winner-take-all or loser-all system. It is said to be causing it. research.
For example, „we found that existing models may underestimate the foreign-born population,“ the researchers wrote.
![In the foreground of a huge industrial park with chimneys, you can see a series of massive apartment blocks.](https://grist.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Richmond-Industrial.jpg?quality=75&strip=all)
![In the foreground of a huge industrial park with chimneys, you can see a series of massive apartment blocks.](https://grist.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Richmond-Industrial.jpg?quality=75&strip=all)
Lauren Elliott of CalMatters
Community groups and environmental justice advocates have long argued that the tool overlooking the community It should be designated as disadvantaged.
There is a huge amount of money at stake, researchers reported, amounting to about $2.08 billion in the last four years alone.
The findings come as scientists increasingly demonstrate that algorithms can be just as biased as the humans who create them. Many disproportionately harm marginalized people.
„The big takeaway is that if you asked 10 different experts in California to come up with their own screening algorithms to determine which areas are 'disadvantaged,' they would likely come up with 10 completely different algorithms. That's what we're going to get,“ said lead author Benjamin Hein. He is a doctoral student at Stanford University and currently a researcher at Johns Hopkins University. “These things may seem like very technical things, but when you look at the numbers, you see billions of dollars flowing through these very technical details. It’s actually very important.”
CalEPA Office of Environmental Health spokeswoman Amy Gilson said the study's recommendations are under review. Any potential changes to CalEnviroScreen would have to go through a „thorough scientific evaluation“ and „an extensive public process,“ she said.
„CalEnviroScreen's methodology is transparent enough to allow for this type of external evaluation, and we welcome discussion of the merits of different approaches,“ Gilson said in an emailed statement to CalMatters.
CalEnviroScreen identifies neighborhoods by census tracts (localized areas, typically containing 1,000 to 8,000 residents, as defined by the U.S. Census Bureau). California released its fourth version of its CalEnviroScreen in October 2021.
CalEnviroScreen assesses 21 environmental, public health, and demographic factors to identify areas most vulnerable to environmental damage. Factors considered include air and drinking water contaminants, pesticide use, toxic emissions, low birth weight, poverty, and unemployment rates. The tool then ranks the 25% most disadvantaged neighborhoods in California. This determines which regions receive billions of dollars in government and private funding.
State law requires that at least a quarter of the money from the California Climate Investment Fund be spent in these communities. The money comes from California's cap-and-trade market program, which allows polluters to buy credits to offset their emissions.
In 2022, the fund will Paid $1.3 billion for approximately 19,500 new projects, according to the State Air Resources Board. Of that amount, $933 million went to disadvantaged and low-income communities, the aviation commission said.
Huynh said he became interested in CalEnviroScreen's zoning after reading a 2021 article in the San Francisco Chronicle that revealed some of San Francisco's poorest neighborhoods were ineligible for funding. Mainly due to ranking on CalEnviroScreen.
„Under such high-uncertainty models, all subjective model decisions implicitly become value judgments,“ the study authors wrote. „Any variation of the model may favor one subpopulation and not another.“
The tool includes only three health components: low birth weight, cardiovascular disease, and emergency department visits for asthma. This could mean excluding communities with large numbers of foreign-born residents, the authors said, because it rules out other serious health conditions such as chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. Although immigrants may have lower rates of asthma or be less likely to seek emergency care, they still have other serious respiratory illnesses, the study says.
It also excludes other common health problems, such as cancer and kidney disease, which can skew which areas are designated as disadvantaged. The authors said changing the tool to include these diseases could result in fewer Black communities being designated as disadvantaged. That would diminish the importance of low birth weight babies, which disproportionately affect black people.
Race is not a factor in the vetting system. But researchers found that tweaking the model could make a big difference for communities of color. For example, they found that changes in indicators meant that more non-white communities with higher levels of poverty were classified as disadvantaged.
The research team proposed several possible solutions to „alleviate equity concerns,“ including using multiple models. That would increase the number of designated communities by 10 percent.
„As there is no single 'best' model, we propose sensitivity analyzes to assess robustness and the inclusion of additional models accordingly,“ the researchers wrote.
Additionally, „safeguards such as external advisory boards comprised of subject matter experts and local community group leaders can also reduce harm by identifying ethical concerns that may be overlooked internally.“ It may help you.”