Combined with the occasional pressure headaches that become exacerbated when I look at sources of light like screens, and a more focused dive into research is going to have to wait. I'm still suffering from a general difficulty maintaining focus on tasks and frequent bouts of nausea. My research plan has taken a bit of a hit as I am still recovering from a decently terrible two-week bid with COVID-19 contracted from a family member who teaches at a daycare. While it is much more general than I aim to get with this project, this study validates the concern of Wilmington by proving it is not an isolated incident due to poor planning, but one symptom of a larger problem that plagues communities across America. It obviously, came to the conclusion that exposure to this particulate matter significantly contributes to lower life expectancy and higher risk of chronic illness in the United States. Census to gather socioeconomic variables. It collected data through the EPA's Inhalable Particle Monitoring Network, cross referenced it with data from the U.S. So to hammer home the dangers of fine-particulate air pollution, I used a more general study from the New England Journal of Medicine that aims to determine the relationship between exposure to fine-particulate matter and increased morbidity and mortality. The people of Wilmington live dangerously close to active, burning oil refineries that pose serious long term health effects to its populace, especially at-risk groups such as children and the elderly.ĭespite its obviousness, I believe it's important to give scientific, objective legitimacy to any claim I make. Improve long-term urban population health. Of, especially of its container ships) can reduce air pollution and Heavier regulations on fuel quality (of which Wilmington has very little Wilmington's air while the city of Arequipa, Peru was significantly Increase of particulate matter, specifically sulfur and nitrate, in That compares an environmentally regulated area in Peru to the Consistent with the map highlighting the density of Wilmington's oil wells, it found that its populace are at a higher risk of certain health conditions due to adverse air quality as a result of a high density of oil wells not present in other parts of Los Angeles.Īnother source I'm using is an undergraduate research project from Purdue University The survey consists of health questions and demographic questions for comparison against census data. In conjunction with the previous source, I came across a study using a UCLA Health survey conducted in the communities of Wilmington and West Pico, a fairly wealthier area with stricter pollution restrictions. I used a few different filters to create a map of LA County's oil wells and made note of the extremely high density in the Wilmington/Harbor area. One of my sources (linked above) is actually public information from the GeoHub, a public platform managed by the city of Los Angeles that provides access to location based Open Data. I'm primarily relying on case studies and maps for my information. Wilmington, CA is located approximately entirely within this square conveniently where arguably the most dense concentration of oil wells in LA County is. For more than seven decades this practice has impacted the lives of millions of people. Generational wealth, job opportunities, and even the over-policing of racially diverse neighborhoods all have roots in how corporations determined the desirability of certain areas primarily due to race. We can trace numerous complex socioeconomic issues back to redlining in the twentieth century. Factors that influenced the desirability of an area included its ethnic diversity, income level, and potential likelihood to be exploited for its natural resources. The HOLC utilized this tactic of redlining in the early years of the postwar economic boom of the 1940's to declare neighborhoods unsuitable for investment. Highlighted is the redlined neighborhood of Wilmington from the 1940's its future residential desirability is declared as non-existent, and accorded a "low red" grade for subversive racial influence (read as diversity), a sizable African-American population, and presence of oil well development. Neighborhoods redlined in the 1940's still suffer from lack of sufficient investment and maintenance to this day, and Wilmington has become the site of poor air quality, a massive oil drilling operation, and a slew of health effects resulting from the abundance of atmospheric pollutants. My research topic is how the people and general health of Wilmington, CA (a neighborhood located in LA's harbor region, west of Long Beach) have been affected by the historical practice of redlining.
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