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Proximate industrial activity and psychological distress

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Abstract

This paper examines the role that gender, occupational status, and family status play in moderating the effect of industrial activity on the psychological well-being of nearby residents. Using a unique spatial assessment of industrial activity and an environmental risk/social stressor framework in conjunction with individual-level data from the Detroit Area Study (DAS) and demographic data from the U.S. census, we find that residents of neighborhoods in close proximity to industrial activity report elevated levels of psychological distress compared to residents of neighborhoods removed from this type of activity. These influences are more pronounced among women but gender differences are also contingent upon occupational and family statuses. We show that specific combinations of work and family statuses make persons particularly vulnerable to the influence of this environmental stressor and women are two and a half times more likely than men to have these vulnerable statuses. This study makes an important contribution to the environmental health literature because it reminds researchers of the fundamental influence of social roles when examining the link between environmental risks and mental health.

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Notes

  1. Currently there are 581 chemicals in 30 different categories.

  2. In 1995, the specified quantities were 25,000 pounds for facilities that manufacture or process TRI chemicals and 10,000 pounds for facilities that otherwise use TRI chemicals.

  3. Kessler et al. (2002, p. 961) define non-specific distress as a “heterogeneous set of cognitive, behavioral, emotional and psychophysiological symptoms that are elevated among people with a wide range of different mental disorders.”

  4. A 10 item scale (the K10) for psychological distress is also commonly used (Kessler et al. 2002) but the six item scale is more common in larger samples such as ours.

  5. Although these items are strongly associated with one another, the correlations are not high enough to introduce problematic multicolinearity. As evidence, a number of different studies have used these measures as independent predictors in multivariate models (see Ellison et al. 2001 for an example).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Sociology and Population Program, Institute of Behavioral Science, University of Colorado, 219 Ketchum Hall, 327 UCB, Boulder, CO, 80309-0327, USA

    Jason D. Boardman & Liam Downey

  2. University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, USA

    James S. Jackson

  3. Department of Sociology, Institute of Behavioral Science, University of Colorado, 219 Ketchum Hall, 327 UCB, Boulder, CO, 80309-0327, USA

    J. Bryce Merrill

  4. University of Houston, 450 Philip Hoffman Hall, Houston, TX, 77204-3012, USA

    Jarron M. Saint Onge

  5. Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA

    David R. Williams

Authors
  1. Jason D. Boardman
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  2. Liam Downey
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  3. James S. Jackson
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  4. J. Bryce Merrill
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  5. Jarron M. Saint Onge
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  6. David R. Williams
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Jason D. Boardman.

Appendix 1

Appendix 1

Figure 2 illustrates the industrial activity variable construction process for two fictitious census blocks. Each census block contains a single facility (F1 and F2) and each block is divided into 16 grid cells. Objects 1, 3, and 5 illustrate the first three steps in the process for facility 1, and objects 2, 4, and 6 illustrate the first three steps in the process for facility 2. Object 1 (in the top left-hand corner of Fig. 2) lists the distance from the center of each cell to the center of the cell in which facility 1 is located and object 2 (in the top right-hand corner of Fig. 2) lists the distance from the center of each cell to the center of the cell in which facility 2 is located (distance equals zero in the facility 1 cell in object 1 and the facility 2 cell in object 2).

Fig. 2
figure 2

Determining proximity to industrial activity: the variable construction process

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Objects 3 and 4 display the weights grids that were created, respectively, for facilities 1 and 2. To simplify the presentation, the mathematical function used to create these weights grids, F(w), is linear rather than curvilinear. Thus, each cell value in object 3 was calculated by inserting the distance value from the corresponding cell in object 1 into the distance decay function listed below object 3; and each cell value in object 4 was calculated by inserting the distance value from the corresponding cell in object 2 into the distance decay function listed below object 4. For example, the weight for the grid cell in the top left-hand corner of block A in object 3 equals \( \left( { 1- ( 7.\overline{ 5 7} * 10^{ - 4} * 141 . 4 )} \right) \), or 0.893, and the weight for the grid cell in the top left-hand corner of block A in object 4 equals \( \left( { 1- ( 7.\overline{ 5 7} * 10^{ - 4} * 608 . 3 )} \right) \), or 0.539 (141.4 is the distance in feet from facility 1 to the center of the cell in the top left-hand corner of tract A and 608.3 is the distance in feet from facility 2 to the center of the cell in the top left-hand corner of tract A).

Objects 5 and 6 are the relative effects grids created, respectively, for facilities 1 and 2. In this example, facility 1 emits 100 pounds of TRI air pollutants and facility 2 emits 1,000 pounds of TRI air pollutants. Thus, the cell values in object 5 were calculated by multiplying the cell values in object 3 by 100, and the cell values in object 6 were calculated by multiplying the cell values in object 4 by 1,000. The cell values in objects 5 and 6 were then summed together to create object 7, the summed relative effects grid for facilities 1 and 2. Thus, the value of each cell in object 7 was calculated by summing together the values of its corresponding cell in object 5 and its corresponding cell in object 6. For example, the cell value in the top left-hand corner of block A in object 7 equals the cell value in the top left-hand corner of block A in object 5 plus the cell value in the top left-hand corner of block A in object 6 (89.3 + 539 = 628.3).

Finally, object 8 lists the average cell value for each block in object 7. These values, which represent the mean relative effect of all study area facilities on each study area analysis unit, are calculated by summing together the cell values in each analysis unit and then dividing each analysis unit total by the number of cells in that analysis unit.

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Boardman, J.D., Downey, L., Jackson, J.S. et al. Proximate industrial activity and psychological distress. Popul Environ 30, 3–25 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11111-008-0075-8

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