By: Miki Johnson An Associated Press package titled "Unhealthy Air" and set to move tomorrow will utilize information from a government database that assigns every U.S. neighborhood a score for health risks caused by factory air pollution.
Analysis by AP reporter David Pace maps this information, obtained under the Freedom of Information Act, onto information from the 2000 Census to illuminate the social, racial and economic impact of air pollution.
The multi-media package includes three features, 30 state-specific sidebars, a logo, videos, photos, graphics, a slide show, and a searchable online database that gives readers the health-risk score for their neighborhood. AP members will have early online access to the scores and highest risk neighborhoods so they may further localize the package.
The AP analysis found black Americans were 79% more likely to live in the highest risk neighborhoods and occupants of such neighborhoods are more likely to be poor and less educated. The first feature, 2,000 words datelined Chicago and moving Tuesday, examines the legacy of industrial air pollution. A second moves Wednesday about health consequences of pollution, and the final story, moving Thursday, looks at neighborhoods' struggles to get businesses and governments to clean up their air.
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