Explore the relationship between the location of swine ILOs and the race or income of nearby residents. 

Geospatial Analysis Activity.

Overview

Environmental justice – the unfair spatial distribution of hazards and benefits by race, income, or other factors – can be observed in the locations of North Carolina’s industrial livestock operations (ILOs). In this activity, you will create a poster explaining a community-based research project about ILOs and estimate a measure of environmental justice in North Carolina through the lens of race or income.

Assignment Details

1. Read the Wing et al. (2008) article about the Community Health Effects of Industrial Hog Operations (CHEIHO) project, available on Blackboard.
2. Create a research poster about environmental injustice in North Carolina’s swine ILOs.

1. Your poster should include the following sections: Introduction, Methods, Results, Discussion, Conclusions, and References (your Discussion and Conclusions section can be a single section, or two separate ones).
2. You will draw on the research article to help with the introduction and methods of your poster. However, you will generate the results section. Your discussion/conclusions will come from a combination of what you learned from the article and from your own results.

3. Explore the relationship between the location of swine ILOs and the race or income of nearby residents.
   1. Choose to focus on one of the following dimensions of environmental justice for your poster:
      1. race (proportion of non-white residents)
      2. income (proportion of households living below the poverty line) 
   2. Choose one of the following four indicators of exposure to swine ILOs:
      • . Number of swine in the Census block group (swine)

1. Number of swine within 3 miles of the Census block group (swine_3)
2. Number of swine ILOs in the Census block group (ilos)

• Number of swine ILOs within 3 miles of the Census block group (ilos_3)

4. Include other important design and content elements appropriate for research posters, including: an informative title, your name, captions for any tables or figures, and the institution you are representing.
5. Submit either a PowerPoint or Google Slides “Print to PDF” a copy of your poster and submit an electronic version to Blackboard by the due date.

Required information

Your poster must include all of the following pieces of information.

1. Information about swine or swine ILOs in North Carolina, which you can get from GeoDa and the Wing et al. article:

1. An explanation of why swine ILOs could be a public health concern, including at least one photograph to help illustrate the problem. Be sure to include credits for any photos that you use.
   1. fecal waste bits, waste pits, and spray pits contain groundwater which contaminates the ground and surface water. They are disproportionately located in low-income and minority heavy areas.
2. The total number of swine or the total number of ILOs in North Carolina.
   • . Total Number of ILOs= 9,500,000 as of Dec. 2019

1. A table showing the top hog-producing counties and the number of hogs or ILOs (using your chosen definition above) in each of these counties. [Hint: Use the Aggregate function in GeoDa and look up North Carolina county FIPS codes online].
   • .
2. A color-coded map showing the spatial distribution of the number of swine or ILOs across North Carolina.
   • .
3. A map, table, set of numbers, or text communicating information about the clustering of swine or ILOs in North Carolina. (Hannah write text)

1. Information about race or income in North Carolina, depending on your dimension of environmental injustice, which you should research on your own:

• . An explanation of the meaning of income or race to health in the context of North Carolina, as well as potential meanings of income and race to swine ILO siting decisions. For instance, consider access to health-promoting resources, land-use policy, historical context, and exposure comorbidities.

1. A figure showing the distribution of race or income across North Carolina.
   • .
2. The proportion of households living below the poverty line or the proportion of non-white residents in the top hog-producing counties in NC, compared to the state and national averages.
   • .

1. Information about the relationship between race or income and swine ILO locations.

• . Discuss the implications of what you learned about environmental injustice in siting of hog ILOs from the article and your own results.

1. Make specific public health recommendations—for example for future research, policy, programs, or interventions—related to race or income and swine ILOs. – ANDRES

Recommendations: creating a poster

Information about how to create a research poster can be found on Blackboard in the file “Anatomy of a Research Poster.”