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Potential Environmental Injustice in Exposure to Feces-Contaminated Water and Resulting Illnesses at New England Beaches
Citation:
Burman, E., N. Merrill, K. Mulvaney, AND A. Contreras Balbuena. Potential Environmental Injustice in Exposure to Feces-Contaminated Water and Resulting Illnesses at New England Beaches. International Society for Environmental Epidemiology – North American Chapter Conference 2023, Corvallis, OR, June 19 - 21, 2023.
Impact/Purpose:
Bathing beach waters in the United States may be contaminated with fecal pathogens, necessitating monitoring and closure programs. In this study, we use commercial cell phone data to estimate visitation to bathing beaches in New England, estimate the demographics of these visitors, and link these visitation patterns to water quality measurements. This allows us to identify environmental injustices in visitation to beaches with clean water and predict epidemiologic patterns of gastrointestinal illness due to exposure to pathogens while swimming. These findings can add to a growing body of research indicating inequities in access to safe recreational activities and disease burden, and might be used by federal, state, and local actors in charge of creating and implementing beach monitoring and closure procedures.
Description:
Swimming at the beach is a highly valued recreational activity in New England, but fecal contamination in these waters can endanger public health. Swimming beaches with poorer water quality tend to be nearer to low-income, non-white communities, indicating a potential environmental injustice in access to swimming beaches with clean water. However, the demographics of actual beach visitors at different beaches, as well as the number of people made sick by pathogens at these beaches, are unknown. To estimate these outcomes, we used commercial cell phone location data to model the number of visitors to New England beaches from 2018-2019 and those visitors’ home census tracts. We link these visitations to water quality measurements from U.S. EPA’s Beach Advisory and Closing Online Notification (BEACON) system. We applied an existing epidemiologic model to estimate gastrointestinal illness resulting from exposure to pathogens while swimming at these beaches. This analysis will allow us to determine if disproportionately more visitors from non-white and lower income communities visit beaches with worse water quality measurements, and are consequently more likely to contract gastrointestinal illness from use of the recreational waters, revealing an environmental injustice. As EPA works to refine beach monitoring and closure guidelines and advance environmental justice, this work can help inform policies that promote public health and health equity.
