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In the future, police and crime prevention units could begin monitoring pollution levels in their cities and deploying resources in the most polluted areas on a given day.
This may seem like the plot of a sci-fi movie, but recent discoveries suggest that this might be a valuable practice.
Why? Recent studies show that air pollution is related to impaired judgment, mental health problems, lower academic performance and, perhaps more worryingly, higher crime.
These findings are all the more alarming as more than half of the world's population now lives in urban areas – and more of us are traveling in congested areas than ever before. Surprisingly, the World Health Organization says that nine out of ten people frequently breathe dangerous levels of polluted air.
Air pollution kills about seven million people a year. But could we soon add murder figures to that too?
BBC Future considers the evidence.
Watch our animated version on BBC Reel: How polluted air pollutes our mind
In 2011, Sefi Roth, researcher at the London School of Economics, asked about the many effects of air pollution. He was well aware of the negative health consequences, the increase in the number of hospitalizations and mortality. But maybe, he thought, there could be other negative impacts on our lives.
For starters, he conducted a study to determine whether air pollution had an effect on cognitive performance.
Roth and his team looked at students who were taking exams on different days – and also measured the amount of pollution in the air those days. All other variables remained the same: exams were taken by students with similar levels of education, in the same place, but over several days.
He found that the variation in average scores was extremely different. The most polluted days correlated with the worst test scores. On days when air quality was the purest, students achieved better results.
"We could see a sharp decline [of performance] the most polluted days, "says Roth. "Even a few days before and a few days later, we did not notice any effects – it's really the day of the exam that the test score dropped significantly."
To determine the long-term effects, Roth followed to see what was the impact eight to ten years later. Those who had the worst performance on the most polluted days were more likely to end up in a lower ranked university and earn less because the exam in question was so important for future education. "Even if it is a short-term effect of air pollution, it can actually have a long-term effect if it occurs in a critical phase of life," he says.. In 2016, another study confirmed Roth's initial findings that pollution could lead to lower productivity.
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These are the ideas that led to Roth's most recent work. In 2018, his team analyzed two years of crime data from more than 600 constituencies in London and found that more minor crimes were committed on the most polluted days, in both rich and poor areas.
It is important to note that this conclusion is purely correlational – but Roth has reason to believe that there is a causal link.
Wherever the cloud of pollution moves, crime increases
His team also compared very specific areas over time, as well as the following levels of pollution. After all, a cloud of polluted air can move depending on the direction of the wind. This causes pollution in different parts of the city, at random, in the richest and poorest areas. "We follow this cloud every day and see what happened to crime in areas where the cloud is coming in … We have seen that wherever it happens, the crime rate goes up," he says.
Importantly, even moderate pollution made the difference. "We find that these significant effects on crime are at levels well below current regulatory standards." In other words, the levels that the US Environmental Protection Agency describes as "good" were still strongly related to higher crime rates.
Roth's data did not reveal any significant effect on the most serious crimes of murder and rape, but another study in 2018 showed a possible link. The research, led by Jackson Lu of MIT, examined nine years of data and covered almost the entire United States in more than 9,000 cities. He found that "air pollution predicted six broad categories of crimes," including manslaughter, rape, robbery, car theft and assault. The most polluted cities also had the highest crime rates. This was another correlational study, but it took into account factors such as population, employment levels, age and sex – and pollution remained the main predictor of the increase in the crime rate.
A study of "delinquent behavior" (including cheating, absenteeism, theft, vandalism, and substance use) in over 682 adolescents is further evidence. Diana Younan, of the University of Southern California, and her colleagues specifically looked at PM2.5 – tiny particles 30 times smaller than the width of a human hair – and examined the I & # 39; cumulative effect of exposure to these pollutants over a 12-year period. Again, bad behavior was much more likely in the most polluted areas.
To verify the link could not be explained by the only socio-economic status, the Younan team also took into account parents' education, poverty, the quality of their neighborhood and many other factors to isolate the effect of microparticles with respect to these other known influences on the environment. criminality.
Younan says his findings are particularly disturbing because we know that a person's behavior in adolescence is a powerful predictor of how he will behave in adulthood. Offenders are more likely to be less successful in school, experience further unemployment, and be more addicted to addiction. This means that early intervention must be a priority.
Exposure to various pollutants can cause inflammation of the brain
There are many potential mechanisms that could explain how air pollution affects our morality.
Lu, for example, showed that the mere thought of pollution could influence our psychology through its negative associations.
Naturally, researchers were not able to physically expose the participants to the pollution, so they took the next step (ethically approved). They showed the American and Indian participants the photos of an extremely polluted city and asked them to imagine living there. "We made them psychologically feel the effects of pollution," says Lu. "… then asked them to really imagine living in this city, and how they would feel and how their lives would live in this environment, to make them live psychologically air pollution compared to a clean environment. "
He found that the participant's anxiety became more self-centered – two responses that could increase aggressive and irresponsible behavior. "As a mechanism of self-protection, we all know that when we are anxious, we are more likely to hit someone in the face than when we are calm," says Lu. "So, by raising people's anxiety, air pollution can have a detrimental effect on the behavior. "
When we are anxious, we are more likely to hit someone in the face than when we are calm
In later experiments, the team showed that participants in "polluted" conditions were more likely to cheat on multiple tasks and overstate their performance in order to gain rewards.
This research is only a beginning and many reasons could explain these effects, in addition to the increase in anxiety and self-concentration described by Lu, including physiological changes in the brain. When you breathe in polluted air, for example, it affects the amount of oxygen you have in your body at any given time – and this can result in a reduction of "good air" in your brain. It can also irritate the nose, throat, cause headaches, which can all lower our concentration.
It is also clear that exposure to various pollutants can cause inflammation of the brain and damage the brain structure and neuronal connections. "What could happen is that these air pollutants damage the pre-frontal lobe," says Younan. This is the very essential area to control our impulses, our executive function and our self-control.
In addition to rising crime, it could also lead to a serious decline in mental health. A study conducted in March 2019 even showed that adolescents exposed to toxic and polluted air are at higher risk of psychotic episodes, such as hearing voices or paranoia. Senior researcher Joanne Newbury, of King's College London, says she can not yet say that her findings are causal, but the results are consistent with those of other studies suggesting a link between pollution from the air pollution and the air pollution. Air and mental health. "This adds to the evidence that air pollution is related to physical health problems and that air pollution is related to dementia. If it's bad for the body, expect it to be bad for the brain, "she says.
People in the field say that we must now become more aware of the impact of pollution, as well as its well-established effects on our health. "We need more studies showing the same thing in other populations and age groups," says Younan.
Fortunately, we have some control over the amount of pollution we are exposed to on a daily basis. We can be proactive and research the quality of the air around us on a given day. The instructors indicate the most dangerous days and the lowest. "If it's dangerous, I would not recommend running outside or working indoors," says Younan.
While many countries are waiting for stricter legislation or government intervention to combat pollution, some places have taken positive steps. Take California, where regulation has resulted in less pollution and, interestingly, less crime. Although promising, Younan emphasizes that we do not know yet whether it is a coincidence or not. Meanwhile, in London, from 8 April 2019, there will be a new "very low emission zone" which applies stricter emission standards with additional daily charges of £ 12.50 (16, $ 30) for "most types of vehicles", in addition to the current congestion charge of £ 11.50. More and more environmentally friendly buses are also being phased in as part of the Clean Air for London initiative.
"We are pretty good at reducing pollution in many countries, but we should be doing more," said Roth. "It's not necessarily just the government. But it's also you and me. When we think about what we want to buy, how to get there, we all have an impact on the environment and we need to be more aware of it and make more informed decisions about what we are doing. "
Roth is hopeful that increasing pollution is a problem we have control to solve, but in the meantime, we need to raise awareness of the issues.
If we all begin to monitor pollution levels ourselves, then we can usually avoid certain activities, such as outdoor sports, or even the most polluted daily commutes. Our bodies, our brains and our behaviors will benefit.
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Melissa Hogenboom is editor-in-chief of BBC Reel. His film on the same subject can be seen here, she is @melissasuzanneh on Twitter.
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