Inequalities in exposure to air pollution in Australia

International research in the field of environmental justice has found that many disadvantaged subpopulations are inequitably exposed to air pollution, potentially contributing to disparities in health outcomes. Few studies have analysed inequitable exposure to air pollution in Australia, although research about environmental regulations and the health effects of air pollution indicates that environmental inequalities may exist. However, there are concerns that existing methods are not appropriate for analysing inequitable air pollution exposure in Australia, as they were developed to investigate specific racial inequalities in proximity to polluting sources in the United States. To address these concerns, the aims of this thesis were to determine if disadvantaged subpopulations are inequitably exposed to air pollution in Australia, and whether existing methods from environmental justice research are appropriate for investigating these inequalities. Three studies were conducted to achieve these aims, examining disparities in exposure to various airborne pollutants at different spatial scales, and the applicability of existing methods and data to analyse these disparities. The analyses from these studies found evidence that disadvantaged subpopulations, including ethnic minorities and socio-economically disadvantaged communities, are inequitably exposed to a number of airborne pollutants at national and local scales. Moreover, these studies found that existing environmental justice methods may not be appropriate for assessing potential cases of inequitable air pollution exposure in Australia. Underlying issues with Australia’s National Pollutant Inventory indicated that some of the most well-established methods for analysing air pollution exposure are likely to be unreliable, because they depend on emissions estimates from point sources to measure exposure. Furthermore, due to their inability to account for local factors affecting exposure, ecological analyses that are primarily applied in environmental justice research were found to hide potential inequalities in exposure to pollution. These shortcomings impede the ability to investigate possible environmental inequalities, particularly those affecting rural Indigenous communities who are potentially the most vulnerable to air pollution. The results of this thesis demonstrate that policy must be developed to address inequalities in exposure to air pollution in Australia, and that appropriate methods that are suited to Australia’s social and environmental context must be created to achieve this