Petrochemical releases disproportionately affected socially vulnerable populations along the Texas Gulf Coast after Hurricane Harvey

The authors examined associations between the sociodemographic composition of Gulf Coast census tracts and the density of petrochemical facilities that reported releases in the month following Hurricane Harvey by calculating a Hurricane Harvey petrochemical hazard density index (PHDI) based on the locations of 42 facilities with reported releases along the Texas Gulf Coast and using sociodemographic data from the American Community Survey to examine census tract-level social inequalities in PHDI (n = 1099 tracts).