Department of Environmental and Occupational Health, The George Washington University, Washington, District of Columbia, USA.
Department of Energy, Environmental & Chemical Engineering, Washington University in St. Louis, St. Louis, Missouri, USA.
Environ Health Perspect. 2024 Mar;132(3):37002. doi: 10.1289/EHP11900. Epub 2024 Mar 6.
Ambient nitrogen dioxide () and fine particulate matter with aerodynamic diameter () threaten public health in the US, and systemic racism has led to modern-day disparities in the distribution and associated health impacts of these pollutants.
Many studies on environmental injustices related to ambient air pollution focus only on disparities in pollutant concentrations or provide only an assessment of pollution or health disparities at a snapshot in time. In this study, we compare injustices in and health burdens, considering health impacts across the entire US; document changing disparities in these health burdens over time (2010-2019); and evaluate how more stringent air quality standards would reduce disparities in health impacts associated with these pollutants.
Through a health impact assessment, we quantified census tract-level variations in health outcomes attributable to and using health impact functions that combine demographic data from the US Census Bureau; two spatially resolved pollutant datasets, which fuse satellite data with physical and statistical models; and epidemiologically derived relative risk estimates and incidence rates from the Global Burden of Disease study.
Despite overall decreases in the public health damages associated with and , racial and ethnic relative disparities in pediatric asthma and premature mortality have widened in the US during the last decade. Racial relative disparities in premature mortality and pediatric asthma have increased by 16% and 19%, respectively, between 2010 and 2019. Similarly, ethnic relative disparities in premature mortality have increased by 40% and pediatric asthma by 10%.
Enacting and attaining more stringent air quality standards for both pollutants could preferentially benefit the most marginalized and minoritized communities by greatly reducing racial and ethnic relative disparities in pollution-attributable health burdens in the US. Our methods provide a semi-observational approach to track changes in disparities in air pollution and associated health burdens across the US. https://doi.org/10.1289/EHP11900.
环境二氧化氮（）和空气动力学直径小于 2.5 微米的细颗粒物（）威胁着美国公众健康，现代社会的种族主义导致这些污染物的分布和相关健康影响存在差异。
许多有关环境空气污染相关环境不公的研究仅关注污染物浓度的差异，或者仅提供对特定时间点的污染或健康差异的评估。在这项研究中，我们比较了与环境空气污染相关的健康负担方面的不公正现象，考虑了整个美国范围内的健康影响；记录了这些健康负担随时间变化的差异（2010-2019 年）；并评估了更严格的空气质量标准如何减少与这些污染物相关的健康影响的差异。
通过健康影响评估，我们使用健康影响函数量化了归因于和的与健康相关的结果在普查区层面的变化，该函数结合了美国人口普查局的人口数据；两个空间分辨率的污染物数据集，该数据集融合了卫星数据和物理及统计模型；以及全球疾病负担研究中流行病学衍生的相对风险估计和发病率。
尽管与和相关的公共健康损害总体呈下降趋势，但在美国，过去十年中，与种族和民族有关的儿科哮喘和过早死亡率的相对差异有所扩大。2010 年至 2019 年期间，与过早死亡率和儿科哮喘相关的种族相对差异分别增加了 16%和 19%。同样，与过早死亡率相关的种族相对差异增加了 40%，与儿科哮喘相关的种族相对差异增加了 10%。
制定和实现更严格的这两种污染物的空气质量标准，可以通过大大减少美国因污染造成的健康负担方面的种族和民族相对差异，优先使最边缘化和少数民族社区受益。我们的方法提供了一种半观察性方法，可以跟踪美国的空气污染和相关健康负担差异的变化。
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