It is at this point commonly understood that poor Americans suffer from industrial pollution at rates far higher than more wealthy Americans. The effect by which this happens is also well understood: heavy industry and "industrial"-scale farming is concentrated where the land is cheapest; places where the land is cheapest are commonly places in which poverty is high and job opportunities are low; a heavily polluting industrial site proposed in a more wealthy neighborhood would, even aside from land costs, be met with a flurry of lawsuits from neighbors more financially able to mount an effective opposition and with a flurry of new laws and regulations from wealthier towns and counties meant to either discourage construction or, at the least, require expensive mitigation efforts.
It stands to reason, then, that the massive North Carolina hog and poultry farms thrust into the spotlight after Hurricane Florence drowned a still-unknown of animals and flooded industrial-sized containment ponds of pig excrement would be located in the poorest (and least white) rural portions of the state. And a new study attempts to detail the effects of those industrial farms on surrounding Americans even when a hurricane isn't passing overhead.
The new study also found worse health outcomes in the hog counties than in the control—rates were higher for all-cause mortality, infant mortality, mortality from anemia, kidney disease, tuberculosis, as well as hospital admissions for low birth-weight infants. They also showed Group 2 rates for these conditions are significantly higher than national and state averages.
To control for overall racial health disparities in the US population, they identified zip codes in the control area that had similar racial, age, and income characteristics similar to those of Group 2, the most hog-intensive regions. Again, Group 2’s metrics generally came out worse than their hog-free peers. They also found a direct relationship between proximity and bad health outcomes—the closer you live to a big hog operation, the more likely you are to die or be hospitalized for kidney disease, have a low-birth-weight baby, and suffer from other maladies.
Communities suing the farms over health effects now have a bit more evidence to back their claims up; living near an industrial-sized hog or poultry farm doesn't just smell bad when the wind blows your way. It can be bad for your health.