Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering , University of Washington , Seattle , Washington 98195 , United States.
Department of Energy Resources Engineering, School of Earth, Energy and the Environment , Stanford University , Stanford , California 94305 , United States.
Environ Sci Technol. 2019 Dec 3;53(23):14010-14019. doi: 10.1021/acs.est.9b02527. Epub 2019 Nov 20.
Electricity generation is a large contributor to fine particulate matter (PM) air pollution. However, the demographic distribution of the resulting exposure is largely unknown. We estimate exposures to and health impacts of PM from electricity generation in the US, for each of the seven Regional Transmission Organizations (RTOs), for each US state, by income and by race. We find that average exposures are the highest for blacks, followed by non-Latino whites. Exposures for remaining groups (e.g., Asians, Native Americans, Latinos) are somewhat lower. Disparities by race/ethnicity are observed for each income category, indicating that the racial/ethnic differences hold even after accounting for differences in income. Levels of disparity differ by state and RTO. Exposures are higher for lower-income than for higher-income, but disparities are larger by race than by income. Geographically, we observe large differences between where electricity is generated and where people experience the resulting PM health consequences; some states are net exporters of health impacts, other are net importers. For 36 US states, most of the health impacts are attributable to emissions in other states. Most of the total impacts are attributable to coal rather than other fuels.
发电是细颗粒物（PM）空气污染的一个主要贡献者。然而，由此产生的暴露的人口分布在很大程度上是未知的。我们估计了美国七个区域输电组织（RTO）中每个 RTO 、每个州、按收入和种族划分的发电产生的 PM 暴露及其对健康的影响。我们发现，黑人的平均暴露水平最高，其次是非拉丁裔白人。其余群体（如亚洲人、美国原住民、拉丁裔）的暴露水平略低。在每个收入类别中都观察到了种族/族裔差异，这表明即使考虑到收入差异，种族/族裔差异仍然存在。各州和 RTO 之间的差异程度不同。与高收入者相比，低收入者的暴露水平更高，但种族差异比收入差异更大。从地理上看，我们观察到电力产生的地点和人们经历由此产生的 PM 健康后果的地点之间存在很大差异；一些州是健康影响的净出口州，而另一些州则是净进口州。对于 36 个美国州，大多数健康影响归因于其他州的排放。总影响的大部分归因于煤炭，而不是其他燃料。
