1. Assessing Environmental Injus3ces Regarding Retail Stores Marke3ng Toxic
Shampoo Products to Women in Fremont, California
Juan Silva
Environmental Studies Department-San Jose State University-Fall 2015
Introduc3on
In the United States, there are thousands of people from
different race backgrounds using shampoos and
condi:oners. The majority of these personal care products
carry toxic chemicals that are known to cause short-term
and long-term health effects to human beings (Kessler
2015). According to a study, 48.4% of African American
women were expose more to products containing
phthalates chemicals than Mexican and white women
(Branch et al. 2015). In the past 20 years, researchers found
that African American women had higher levels of parabens
than Caucasian men and women in their urine samples
(Smith et al. 2012). The health effects associated with
personal care products is a topic scien:sts are currently
engaged, but liQle informa:on is known about whether or
not stores market more toxic shampoo brands to African
American women.
Methods
1. A total of 4 retail stores and 1 beauty supply store were
inspected. The stores that were inspected were Walgreens,
CVS Pharmacy, Target, Wal-Mart, and Sally Beauty supply
store.
2. A soUware applica:on called Think Dirty was downloaded
into the IPhone device. An account had to be created to save
all the shampoos scanned.
3. For each store, the ethnic and non-ethnic shampoo
shelves were scanned using the IPhone device.
4. AUer scanning every shampoo brand, the toxicity results
would appear in the screen and had to be added to the
ethnic or non-ethnic category
5. Overall, Toxicity levels repor:ng 0-3 are clean, 4-7
moderate, 8-10 hazardous (Think dirty 2014).
Results
Figure 1.) This graph illustrates the average toxicity
levels for all the stores inspected in Fremont, CA. The
average toxicity level for non-ethnic shampoos brands
was 8.90 while the average toxicity level for ethnic
shampoo brands was 7.18. The overall p-value for this
par:cular study was 0.046.
Discussion
Based on the final results, the average toxicity levels for
non-ethnic shampoo brands was higher than the ethnic
shampoo brands across all stores due to having a large
supply quan:ty. The overall P-value for all the stores
combined in Fremont, CA was 0.046, which turn out to be
less than the alpha p-value to reject the Null Hypothesis.
Therefore, retail and beauty supply stores marketed more
toxic shampoo brands to African American women
compared to women of other racial groups.
Research Ques3on/Hypotheses:
Q1 – Are retail and beauty supply stores in Fremont,
California, marke:ng more toxic shampoo brands to
African American women compared to women of
other racial groups?
H1-There is a sta:s:cally significant difference in
regards to retail stores marke:ng more toxic shampoo
brands to African American women compared to
women of other racial groups.
Null Hypothesis-There is no sta:s:cally significant
difference in regards to retail stores marke:ng more
toxic shampoo brands to African American women
compared to women of other racial groups.
Recommenda3ons
Future studies should focus on interviewing African
American women and women of other racial groups to
determine the propor:on of shampoo they use on a weekly
basis. Interviewing women would be effec:ve in regards to
finding out what type of shampoos they buy most oUen and
where they buy them from.
Conclusion
The overall findings of this study show that there is an
environmental injus:ce to be found across all retail and
beauty supply stores marke:ng more toxic shampoo brands
to African American women. The majority of stores
inspected reported to have an average toxicity level greater
than (6) for almost every shampoo brand type marketed to
women. Therefore, we can conclude that women in general
are being discriminated against by retail stores for selling
shampoo brands with hazardous chemicals, which can put
them at risk of developing health problems.
References
Anon. THINK DIRTY® METHODOLOGY. Think Dirty
[Internet]. 2014 [cited 2015 Mar].