Browsing by Author "Medina, María Paula"

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    Inequality in Air Pollution Monitoring and Exposure: Evidence from Four Latin American Cities
    (2025) Hoffmann, Bridget; Domínguez Rivera, Patricio; Medina, María Paula
    We study inequality in monitoring and exposure to particulate matter air pollution in four metropolitan areas of Latin America, Bogota, Colombia, Mexico City, Mexico, Gran Santiago, Chile, and Sao Paulo, Brazil. We find that the population residing in close proximity to at least one monitoring station in Bogota, Mexico City, and Sao Paulo generally have higher educational attainment and income. In contrast, in Gran Santiago, education levels are generally higher further from monitoring stations. In Bogota, Mexico City, and Sao Paulo, the distance to the closest monitoring station declines and the number of monitoring stations within 3 km increases as the mean education level of the census geographic unit increases. Considering only census ge- ographic units that contain a monitoring station, we find that areas where individuals with lower educational attainment reside tend to be exposed to higher pollution lev- els. While we find small and mostly insignificant disparities in mean annual concen- trations of particulate matter, we find that lower education quintiles experience sig- nificantly more hours of extreme pollution relative to the highest education quintile. Non-linear effects of pollution imply that the small disparity in mean concentrations likely masks large disparities in the negative impacts of air pollution. Our findings indicate that in Bogota, Mexico City, and Sao Paulo, air pollution exposure is likely to be better monitored for those with higher educational attainment and income, and in all four cities, lower income and education groups have greater exposure to extreme levels of air pollution.