In recent years, social justice has been a topic of great interest to academics of many disciplines. Popular foci of social justice research include education, employment, impacts of climate change, and law enforcement. ... [ view full abstract ]
In recent years, social justice has been a topic of great interest to academics of many disciplines. Popular foci of social justice research include education, employment, impacts of climate change, and law enforcement. Until recently, nearly no research regarding humans and environmental noise exposure has been conducted. Increased environmental noise has been shown to increase prevalence of hearing loss, sleep disruption, cardiovascular disease, hypertension, and a number of other detrimental physiological changes. Additionally, exposure to increased environmental noise can lead to increased agitation, impaired cognitive performance, and increased stress. Because of these behavioral, cognitive, and physiological impacts of environmental noise, examining and addressing noise exposure social injustices may prove to be an important step in the direction of social equality.
By using ArcGIS to analyze U.S. Census block group data alongside predicted ambient sound pressure levels produced by a geospatial model, I identified demographics in the contiguous United States that are exposed to environmental noise at a disproportionately high rate. Through this analysis, I also explored regional variations in disproportionate noise exposure as well as the degree to which high ambient noise locations are clustered.
