A recent study led by Washington University professor Dr. Christine Ekenga concluded that the residents of poor and segregated neighborhoods in St. Louis are at a significantly higher risk for cancer and other negative health outcomes due to air pollution, reaffirming concerns about environmental racism from student activists.

Roughly 14% of the census tracts studied showed elevated cancer risk due to the toxins in the air. The authors of the study hope that the results will be used to inform public health efforts to eliminate sociodemographic inequalities in exposure to air pollutants.

“These air toxic hot spots were independently associated with neighborhoods with high levels of poverty and unemployment and low levels of education,” the authors wrote. “Census tracts with the highest levels of both racial isolation of Blacks and economic isolation of poverty were more likely to be located in air toxic hotspots than those with low combined racial and economic isolation.”

In addition to the research being done by faculty, the University has several environmentally-focused student groups, such as Green Action, an advocacy group focused on educating the University community about sustainability and pushing for environmental justice.

Sophomores Frances Wu, Flora Perlmutter, and Maeve Hindenburg, who are all members of Green Action, expressed concern over the results of Ekenga’s study.

“I think it is extremely important to take racial and economic inequalities into account when creating environmental policies or even when thinking about environmental activism as a whole,” Hindenburg said. “Sadly, the main population that adds to climate change is not the population that sees the effects right away. Instead, poorer communities around the globe have to suffer. And along with race, usually poorer communities are composed of minority races. For example, pipelines are more likely to be built closer to Native American reservations than to majority-white towns.”

“Those communities are the most vulnerable, and they are the first affected by climate change and environmental issues,” Wu added. “The vast majority of pollution is caused by corporations, but the effects are being pushed onto these vulnerable communities.”

St. Louis has a long history of segregation contributing to environmental racism, which leads to negative health outcomes such as increased rates of asthma, higher levels of lead exposure and insufficient access to nutrition for marginalized populations.

“The dividing line between east and west St. Louis marks not only a racial divide, but also one of burdens on health, food access, housing, and air quality,” Perlmutter said.

“In the past, segregated black neighborhoods were often zoned as industrial areas, allowing companies and factories to move in and expose residents to harmful materials, effectively poisoning the environment around them,” Wu said.

Hindenburg pointed out that many of the racial and economic differences in St. Louis result in visible disparities.

“When I arrived on campus my first year at Wash. U., multiple adults or older students mentioned the huge racial and economic divide in St. Louis,” Hindenburg said. “Because of this divide, Black communities in St. Louis are much different than white communities. Food deserts are more likely to be present in majority-Black neighborhoods, as is trash-dumping on the yards of Black homeowners.”

One of Green Action’s recent initiatives was an attempt to get the EPA to mandate heavy metal monitoring on an east St. Louis waste incinerator, in order to protect the surrounding community. Ultimately, the EPA decided in a closed door meeting to allow the facility to continue without additional monitoring.

While Green Action’s efforts are divorced from the study, the research affirming the racial and socioeconomic discrepancies in health outcomes adds urgency to the efforts to reduce air pollution in St. Louis to members of the group.

“We believe that policy making needs to be more transparent and respect the health and wellbeing of all,” Perlmutter said.

Authors of the study Christine C. Ekenga, Cheuk Yui Yeung and Masayoshi Oka did not respond to requests for comment.