Air pollution kills 12,000 people in the US, every year
Air pollution is the cause of death for thousands of people in the United States every year, according to a recent study.
Researchers from the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health conducted the most comprehensive study to date assessing the impact of air pollution on mortality.
“We are now providing bullet-proof evidence that we are breathing harmful air,” says Francesca Dominici, a professor of biostatistics, who led the study.
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Even under the level recommended by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), scientists found that the safety standards are not safe enough.
“Our air is contaminated,” she added.
The researchers used data from federal air monitoring stations and satelllites to compile a a comprehensive picture of air pollution down to individual zip codes. Afterwards, they analyzed what impact it has on mortality using data from 60 million Medicare patients from 2000 to 2012.
The analysis conculuded that 12,000 lives could be saved by cuting the level of accepted fine particular matter by just 1 microgram per cubic meter of air, below the current standars.
Researchers also found that the mos affecte cattegories are African-Americans, men and poor people. The danger is especially high for African – Americans who are about three times as likely to die from expose to it.
“People of color tend to be sicker and more affected [by] disease,” she says, pointing out that they also tend to live in places with more pollution and have less access to health care.
The results of the study indicate that the government should do more in order to push air pollution levels as low as possible.
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Jeffrey Drazen, editor-in-chief of the New England Journal of Medicine, warned that the Trump administration’s policies would only make the situation worse. Drazen also cited the administration’s effort to cut funding for the EPA, increase the use of coal, relax air pollution standards and the withdrawal from the Paris Agreement.
“What these data are telling us is that even with our current standards, if we cleaned up the air more, we could save lives,” Drazen says. “Anything that we did that pushed things in the opposite direction — that gave us dirtier air — not only would be unpleasant, it’s going to kill a lot of people.”
“If you look at what’s happening in the Trump administration, the general direction is not to clean up the air,” Drazen says. “So this is a warning that if we don’t clean up the air, the people who are going to bear that burden are the poor and the disadvantaged, more than the rich and well-off.”
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