Department of Economics, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM 87131;
Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of Washington, Seattle, WA 98195.
Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2019 Apr 30;116(18):8775-8780. doi: 10.1073/pnas.1816102116. Epub 2019 Apr 8.
Fine particulate matter (PM) air pollution has been recognized as a major source of mortality in the United States for at least 25 years, yet much remains unknown about which sources are the most harmful, let alone how best to target policies to mitigate them. Such efforts can be improved by employing high-resolution geographically explicit methods for quantifying human health impacts of emissions of PM and its precursors. Here, we provide a detailed examination of the health and economic impacts of PM pollution in the United States by linking emission sources with resulting pollution concentrations. We estimate that anthropogenic PM was responsible for 107,000 premature deaths in 2011, at a cost to society of $886 billion. Of these deaths, 57% were associated with pollution caused by energy consumption [e.g., transportation (28%) and electricity generation (14%)]; another 15% with pollution caused by agricultural activities. A small fraction of emissions, concentrated in or near densely populated areas, plays an outsized role in damaging human health with the most damaging 10% of total emissions accounting for 40% of total damages. We find that 33% of damages occur within 8 km of emission sources, but 25% occur more than 256 km away, emphasizing the importance of tracking both local and long-range impacts. Our paper highlights the importance of a fine-scale approach as marginal damages can vary by over an order of magnitude within a single county. Information presented here can assist mitigation efforts by identifying those sources with the greatest health effects.
细颗粒物（PM）空气污染在美国已被确认为至少 25 年来导致死亡的主要原因之一，但仍有许多未知因素，例如哪些来源危害最大，更不用说如何最好地针对这些来源制定政策来减轻其影响。通过采用高分辨率的、具有明确地理位置的方法来量化 PM 及其前体排放对人类健康的影响，可以改进这些努力。在这里，我们通过将排放源与由此产生的污染浓度联系起来，详细考察了美国 PM 污染对健康和经济的影响。我们估计，2011 年人为 PM 导致了 10.7 万人过早死亡，给社会造成了 8860 亿美元的损失。在这些死亡中，57%与能源消耗（例如交通（28%）和发电（14%））引起的污染有关；另外 15%与农业活动引起的污染有关。排放量的一小部分集中在人口稠密地区或附近，对人类健康造成了极大的损害，最具破坏性的 10%的总排放量造成了 40%的总损失。我们发现，33%的损害发生在排放源 8 公里范围内，但 25%的损害发生在 256 公里以外，这强调了跟踪本地和远程影响的重要性。我们的论文强调了采用精细尺度方法的重要性，因为在单个县内，边际损害的差异可能超过一个数量级。这里提供的信息可以通过确定对健康影响最大的那些来源来协助减轻影响的努力。
