Blood Lead Levels in Minority Children: A Case of Environmental Racism

Racial minorities in the United States have suffered from being disadvantaged. Among these disadvantages is environmental racism. This includes minority communities being ‘sacrifice zones’ for toxic waste and being exposed to lead poisoning. The purpose of this study is to examine differences in blood levels between white children and children of color. This research will follow a bivariate model for the first research question, “Do youth of color (under the age of 18) have higher BLLs than white children?” The bivariate model will look at the relationship between ethno-racial group and BLLs. Specifically, an analysis of variance (ANOVA) will be run to test for statistically significant difference in BLLs between groups. A multilinear regression model will be run to answer the second question, “Do poor youth of color have higher BLLs than their white counterparts?” Findings from the data support this study’s first research question. The data shows Blacks and Asians have higher BLLs than whites. The second research question is answered, but the answer is not what was expected because Asians are the wealthiest group according to the data, but also have the highest BLL average. Further research would need to be done on Asian communities to understand the phenomenon of having high BLLs, while also being the wealthiest race overall