The health effects of racism are so well established that the American Public Health Association launched a National Campaign Against Racism in 2015 (1). Racial disparities in adverse environmental exposures reflect underlying structural and institutional racism ingrained in land use patterns, development policy, facility siting, and municipal zoning decisions, which influence community proximity to environmental hazards and prevent equitable access to essential public health services including regulated public water supplies (2, 3). Childhood lead poisoning is a prominent example of racial disparities in hazardous exposures: 5.6% of non-Hispanic Black children have blood lead levels exceeding the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC’s) action limit of 5 µg/L compared to 2.4% of non-Hispanic White children (4). In PNAS, MacDonald Gibson et al. evaluated blood lead monitoring records for 59,483 children in North Carolina from 2002 to 2015 and compared blood lead concentrations for children reliant on private wells versus those reliant on regulated public water systems (5). Their primary finding—that children using private wells had significantly elevated blood lead concentrations compared to children using regulated public water systems—highlights the inadequacy of current regulatory policy to protect the most highly exposed and susceptible communities and underscores the need for immediate public health interventions to reduce water contaminant exposures for households reliant on private wells. These findings also illuminate how long-standing structural racism results in environmental disparities affecting our most susceptible populations.

中文翻译：

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环境种族主义和对私人井道保护的需求。

种族主义对健康的影响已被充分确立，以至于美国公共卫生协会于2015年发起了一场全国反对种族主义运动（1）。不利的环境暴露中的种族差异反映了土地使用模式，发展政策，设施选址和市政分区决策中根深蒂固的潜在结构和制度种族主义，这影响了社区对环境的危害，并阻碍了人们公平获得基本公共卫生服务，包括受管制的公共供水（2，3）。儿童铅中毒是危险暴露中种族差异的一个突出例子：5.6％的非西班牙裔黑人儿童的血铅水平超过了疾病控制与预防中心（CDC）行动限值5 µg / L，而非铅中毒水平为2.4％ -西班牙裔白人儿童（4）。在PNAS中，MacDonald Gibson等人。评估了2002年至2015年北卡罗来纳州59,483名儿童的血铅监测记录，并比较了依靠私人水井的儿童和依靠监管公共水系统的儿童的血铅浓度（5）。他们的主要发现（与使用管制的公共供水系统的儿童相比，使用私人井的儿童的血铅浓度显着升高）突显了当前的监管政策不足以保护高度暴露和易感的社区，并强调需要立即采取公共卫生干预措施来减少依赖私人水井的家庭的水污染物暴露。这些发现还阐明了长期存在的结构种族主义如何导致影响我们最脆弱人群的环境差异。