A Systematic Review of Animal Feeding Operations Including Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs) for Exposure, Health Outcomes, and Environmental Justice

Background: Despite growing literature on animal feeding operations (AFOs) including concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs), research on disproportionate exposure and associated health burden is relatively limited and shows inconclusive findings.

Objective: We systematically reviewed previous literature on AFOs/CAFOs, focusing on exposure assessment, associated health outcomes, and variables related to environmental justice (EJ) and potentially vulnerable populations.

Methods: We conducted a systematic search of databases (MEDLINE/PubMed and Web of Science) and performed citation screening. Screening of titles, abstracts, and full-text articles and data extraction were performed independently by pairs of reviewers. We summarized information for each study (i.e., study location, study period, study population, study type, study design, statistical methods, and adjusted variables (if health association was examined), and main findings), AFO/CAFO characteristics and exposure assessment (i.e., animal type, data source, measure of exposure, and exposure assessment), health outcomes or symptoms (if health association was examined), and information related to EJ and potentially vulnerable populations (in relation to exposure and/or health associations, vulnerable populations considered, related variables, and main findings in relation to EJ and vulnerable populations).

Results: After initial screening of 10,963 papers, we identified 76 eligible studies. This review found that a relatively small number of studies (20 studies) investigated EJ and vulnerability issues related to AFOs/CAFOs exposure and/or associated health outcomes (e.g., respiratory diseases/symptoms, infections). We found differences in findings across studies, populations, the metrics used for AFO/CAFO exposure assessment, and variables related to EJ and vulnerability. The most commonly used metric for AFO/CAFO exposure assessment was presence of or proximity to facilities or animals. The most investigated variables related to disparities were race/ethnicity and socioeconomic status.

Conclusion: Findings from this review provide suggestive evidence that disparities exist with some subpopulations having higher exposure and/or health response in relation to AFO/CAFO exposure, although results varied across studies.