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Air pollution in the United States has decreased since about 1990 and a new study conducted at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill now shows that this improvement in air quality has had beneficial effects on the public health. The study, published in the journal Atmospheric and Physical Chemistry, found that deaths from air pollution almost halved between 1990 and 2010.
The team's analyzes showed that the number of deaths from exposure to air pollution in the United States had decreased by about 47%, from 135,000 in 1990 to 71,000 in 2010.
These improvements in air quality and public health in the United States coincided with stricter federal air quality regulations and took place despite an increase in population, energy and electricity consumption and kilometers traveled between 1990 and 2010.
"As a company, we have invested a lot of resources to clean up our air," said Jason West, professor of environmental engineering and science at the Gillings School of Global Public Health. the UNC, and co-author of the study. "This study demonstrates that these changes have had a real impact on the number of deaths each year due to exposure to outdoor air pollution."
The study was led by Yuqiang Zhang, a former postdoctoral researcher at the UNC Gillings School and at the Environmental Protection Agency and current researcher at the Duke University Nicholas School of Environment, and in collaboration with West and several EPA scientists.
This study supports the results of a few other recent studies that have also shown similar and dramatic reductions in air pollution-related deaths, but this study is unique in that it uses a computer simulation over 21 years and is able to estimate each year deaths due to air pollution. .
Zhang, West and his colleagues analyzed the concentrations of two pollutants, known as PM2.5 and ozone, from a 21-year computer simulation of air pollution in the United States. PM2.5 are very small airborne particles from power plants, industries and some commercial and residential sources. The diameter of these small particles is less than 2.5 micrometers, which corresponds to about 3% of the diameter of a human hair.
They then associated the decline in PM2.5 and ozone concentrations with the geographical areas in which people live and the causes of death in these areas, using data from the Control Centers and the National Monitoring Center. disease prevention, to estimate deaths due to air pollution during this period. They estimated the number of deaths from ischemic heart disease, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, lung cancer and PM2.5-related cerebrovascular accidents, as well as respiratory illness caused by ozone.
"These health improvements have probably continued beyond 2010, as we observe that concentrations of air pollutants have continued to decline," Zhang said.
The team plans to use other datasets to analyze deaths from air pollution since 2010.
Despite clear improvements, air pollution remains a major public health problem in the United States. An estimated 71,000 deaths in 2010, one in every 35 deaths in the United States – as many deaths as all traffic accidents and shootings combined.
"Although we have had tangible successes, there are still people dying and a public health problem is yet to come," West said. "New federal policies reducing regulations on air pollution will likely slow down the improvement in air quality or possibly worsen its quality.
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