A new study published in PNAS exposes the racial gap between who produces air pollution and who is exposed to it: “While we tend to think of factories or power plants as the source of pollution, those polluters wouldn't exist without consumer demand for their products. The researchers found that air pollution is disproportionately caused by white Americans' consumption of goods and services, but disproportionately inhaled by black and Hispanic Americans… After accounting for population size differences, whites experience about 17 percent less air pollution than they produce, through consumption, while blacks and Hispanics bear 56 and 63 percent more air pollution, respectively, than they cause by their consumption, according to the study…  [Anjum Harat of the University of Washington] says the study reveals an inherent unfairness: "If you're contributing less to the problem, why do you have to suffer more from it?"”’

CityLab explores what happens to community bonds when a neighborhood gentrifies, drawing on new research and reporting. “While gentrification may not cause direct displacement, it foreshadows a slower demographic turnover that can cause fear, alienation, and other tensions that erode community ties. ‘These neighborhoods may be, in a demographic sense, integrating, but socially they’re not integrating,’ [sociologist Joseph Gibbons at San Diego State University] said… When a neighborhood gentrifies, existing residents may see positive effects—more affluent neighbors tend to bring safer streets and improved schools. But not everything changes for the better. Third-generation Graduate Hospital resident Rob Watson told the Philadelphia Inquirer’s Inga Saffron that he lamented the lack of black friends his daughter had in school. “To him, the conversation about renaming the neighborhood [to commemorate prominent African-American residents] feels like a useless exercise because it can’t restore the web of relationships he once enjoyed.”

Vox’s German Lopez reports on rising opioid overdose deaths among African Americans, with a focus on Baltimore, Maryland: “For the past two decades, the news media has generally focused on white victims of the opioid epidemic in suburban and rural areas, such as in West Virginia and New Hampshire. And it’s true that during the early years of the crisis, beginning with opioid painkillers, white people were the primary victims. But as the crisis has widened to involve illicit drugs like heroin and fentanyl, it’s hit black and urban communities harder and harder… Baltimore has suffered decades of urban blight, poor governance, and crime and socioeconomic statistics that can rival developing countries. There are vast health disparities from neighborhood to neighborhood. The US Department of Justice concludedin 2016 that “[r]acially disparate impact is present at every stage of [the Baltimore Police Department]’s enforcement actions.” Gun violence is endemic; one recovery outreach worker I met had to move his work to another block because there was a shooting — an event that was treated as typical and unavoidable, like a storm that forced people indoors…  Baltimore, already dealing with increases in murders and major policing scandals, and Maryland, focused on education, are limited in their resources. And the federal government, despite some increases here and there, hasn’t committed the level of funding that experts and advocates have called for nationwide to combat the opioid crisis.”

A New York Times op-ed looks at how Canada moved about 825,000 people out of poverty between 2015 and 2017: “About 15 years ago, a disparate group of Canadians realized that a problem as complex as poverty can be addressed only through a multisector comprehensive approach. They realized that poverty … was going to be addressed through better systems that were mutually supporting and able to enact change on a population level… So they began building citywide and communitywide structures. They started 15 years ago with just six cities, but now they have 72 regional networks covering 344 towns…. They spend a year learning about poverty in their area, talking with the community. They launch a different kind of conversation. First, they don’t want better poor; they want fewer poor. That is to say, their focus is not on how do we give poor people food so they don’t starve. It is how do we move people out of poverty. Second, they up their ambitions. How do we eradicate poverty altogether? Third, they broaden their vision. What does a vibrant community look like in which everybody’s basic needs are met? … By the time Canada’s national government swung into action, the whole country had a base of knowledge and experience... The two biggest changes were efforts in city after city to raise the minimum wage and the expansion of a national child benefit, which can net a family up to nearly $6,500 a year per child. Canada essentially has guaranteed income for the young and the old.”

A new report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention finds that violence against older Americans has increased significantly since 2002: “Researchers analyzed data between 2002 and 2016 and found the nonfatal assault rate jumped 75.4 percent among older men while rising 35.4 percent among women in this same cohort from 2007 through 2016. Before that, violence against older women had been on the decline… Some 58 percent of assault cases among elderly Americans involved perpetrators who had a relationship with the victim. Similarly, just under half of all homicide victims over 60 personally knew their assailant, according to data from the National Violent Death Reporting System for 2016.”

According to the 2019 State of Global Air report, released this week, air pollution is the fifth leading factor in mortality worldwide, contributing to more deaths than alcohol or drugs, and air pollution shortens the life expectancy of children by an average of 20 months. The report observes that "the growing burden of disease from air pollution is among the major challenges facing national governments and public health officials, with far-reaching implications for national economies and human well-being.”