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BACKGROUND: Recently enacted environmental justice policies in the United States at the state and federal level emphasize addressing place-based inequities, including persistent disparities in air pollution exposure and associated health impacts. Advances in air quality measurement, models, and analytic methods have demonstrated the importance of finer-scale data and analysis in accurately quantifying the extent of inequity in intraurban pollution exposure, although the necessary degree of spatial resolution remains a complex and context-dependent question. OBJECTIVE: The objectives of this commentary were to a) discuss ways to maximize and evaluate the effectiveness of efforts to reduce air pollution disparities, and b) argue that environmental regulators must employ improved methods to project, measure, and track the distributional impacts of new policies at finer geographic and temporal scales. DISCUSSION: The historic federal investments from the Inflation Reduction Act, the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, and the Biden Administrations commitment to Justice40 present an unprecedented opportunity to advance climate and energy policies that deliver real reductions in pollution-related health inequities. In our opinion, scientists, advocates, policymakers, and implementing agencies must work together to harness critical advances in air quality measurements, models, and analytic methods to ensure success. https://doi.org/10.1289/EHP13063.

We greatly appreciate the alternative framing and call to action posed by Ivey, Pruitt, and Garcia (1) in response to our commentary. (2) We agree that the available evidence strongly [...]

One pathway by which environments of socioeconomic risk are thought to affect cognitive development is through stress physiology. The biological systems underpinning stress and attention undergo a sensitive period of development during infancy. Psychobiological theory emphasizes a dynamic pattern of context-dependent development, however, research has yet to examine how basal cortisol and attention dynamically covary across infancy in ecologically valid contexts. Thus, to address these gaps, we leveraged longitudinal, multilevel analytic methods to disentangle between- from within-person associations of hypothalamic–pituitary–adrenal (HPA) axis activity and executive attention behaviors across infancy. We use data from a large longitudinal sample (N = 1,292) of infants in predominantly low-income, nonurban communities at 7-, 15-, and 24-months of age. Using multilevel models, we investigated longitudinal associations of infant attention and basal cortisol levels and examined caregiving behaviors as moderators of this relationship. Results indicated a negative between- and within-person association between attention and cortisol across infancy and a within-person moderation by caregiver responsiveness. In other words, on the within-person level, higher levels of cortisol were concomitantly associated with lower infant attention across the first 2 years of life. However, variation in the caregiver's level of responsiveness either buffered or sensitized the executive attention system to the negative effects of physiological stress. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) regulates most hydropower dams in the United States and grants operational licenses that include conditions for the conservation of sea‐run fish. FERC is the primary authority in relicensing, but the process invites input from other federal and state resource agencies. As a result, relicensing decisions often reflect trade‐offs among competing authorities, values and objectives. FERC relicensing decisions in the Kennebec and Penobscot Rivers in Maine were assessed to characterise agency engagement and identify factors that influence fish passage decisions. Qualitative and quantitative analysis of FERC project documents from 1984 to 2019 showed that conservation measures are focused almost exclusively on Atlantic salmon, Salmo salar L., and American eel, Anguilla rostrate Leseur. Incorporation of fish passage mitigation requirements has increased coincident with increased agency engagement and the use of regulatory authority. Strong fish passage prescriptions are found at coastal projects (where sea‐run fish exist) likely resulting from both state and federal agency input. Despite wide interest in basin‐scale and interagency fish passage planning, implementation of collaborative processes has been slow, with most dams being considered and licensed individually. As a result, there are opportunities to spatially integrate the FERC process in the future and support effective stakeholder engagement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]