Health disparities associated with exposure to animal feeding operations, including concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs), in North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Virginia, USA.

ABSTRACT: Despite growing evidence of health risks posed by animal feeding operations (AFOs) including concentrated AFOs (CAFOs), few studies have explored the associated disproportionate health burdens. We investigated risk of cause-specific mortality associated with AFO/CAFOs and related disparities for North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Virginia (2000-2020). We estimated associations between AFO/CAFO exposure and mortality (anemia, asthma, COPD, diabetes mellitus, cerebrovascular disease, and kidney disease) using logistic regression. For each participant, we applied two exposure metrics based on buffers around population-weighted ZIP-code centroids: (1) binary exposure based on presence or absence of AFOs/CAFOs, and (2) exposure intensity (no exposure, low, medium, and high). We investigated heal

SUBMITTER: Son JY 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC12364031 | biostudies-literature | 2025 May

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature