Who’s afraid of the big bad smell? Evaluating environmental odor as a long-term disaster

Keywords: Environmental odor, vulnerability, risk, hazard, environmental justice, urban geography, GIS, mixed methods
Abstract Type: Paper Abstract

Abstract

Environmental odor permeates many urban communities and odor annoyance is a top air pollution complaint received to air quality management authorities. Yet, there is no US federal regulatory framework for odor pollution, and local response to environmental malodor is primarily considered a nuisance or quality of life issue, rather than a public health or environmental hazard. Odor can negatively impact residents of communities near persistent nuisance industries, often low-income or nonwhite, who experience subjective and objective impacts on health and well-being, even independent of direct effects of the sources of odorous air. Increasingly, odor, itself, has been recognized as an environmental stressor, whether or not it is associated with a recognized toxin, and the independent cause of stress-related symptoms or a compounding factor for pre-existing illnesses. An important gap in public health knowledge is whether human odor perception can be a reliable indicator of noxious air quality, potentially impacting health. This research addresses the current spatial pattern of odor intensity and odorant composition as well as the historical patterns of malodor complaints from local newspapers in Camden, New Jersey, USA. By framing environmental odor within the multidisciplinary theory of vulnerability in the social sciences, this study addresses the patterns of odorants in the social and physical landscapes of the present and past. Examples and insights from ongoing work to document odor patterns and perceptions in Camden, New Jersey, USA, underscore the impacts of environmental odor on disadvantaged communities.