Research Hub

Objective: To assess how environment and race may impact childhood asthma prevalence. Methods: I analyzed data from CDC WONDER (www.wonder.cdc.gov). I performed descriptive statistics on average fine particulate matter for various states, as well as descriptive statistics on childhood asthma prevalence for various states. I determined if there was a correlation between states with higher prevalence of childhood asthma and states with higher levels of fine particulate matter using Pearson correlation. I used ANOVA with post hoc test to determine childhood asthma prevalence based on race/ ethnicity in the various states.

Results: The mean fine particulate matter in the 49 states was 11.653 μg/m³ (standard deviation = 1.559). The state with the lowest level of fine particulate matter was New Mexico with 9.09 μg/m³ and the state with the highest level of fine particulate matter was Indiana with 14.36 μg/m³. The mean asthma prevalence in the 29 states was 8.821% (standard deviation 2.67). The state with the lowest level of asthma prevalence was Minnesota 4.5% and the state with the highest asthma prevalence was Massachusetts with 15.8%. There is no correlation between the 27 states as it relates to asthma prevalence and fine particulate matter level. The correlation strength was 0.027 and the p value = 0.893. Blacks had the highest asthma prevalence compared to White Non Hispanic (NH), Other NH, and Hispanics and there was a statistically significant difference between blacks and the other races as it relates to asthma prevalence (Figure 1).

Published Jan 1, 2020

McKnight, S. (2020). The Relationship between Asthma, Race & Fine Particulate Matter in the United States. Scholarship in Medicine - All Papers. https://corescholar.libraries.wright.edu/scholarship_medicine_all/39

As one of the nation’s more populous cities, Denver experiences substantial traffic-related congestion, making its air quality one of the worst in the nation. In 2018, the City and County of Denver conducted a series of anti-idling campaigns to educate Denver school communities on their idling behaviors. Three Denver Public School campuses were selected to undergo three weeks of data collection and behavior change intervention experiments. Volunteers collected data during afternoon school pick-up by recording how many vehicles idled. After a week of baseline data collection, Denver introduced different idling reduction methods, first by placing anti-idling signs in pick-up lanes and then by sending home anti-idling pledges to parents through their child’s take-home folders. As a result, the school sites noticed a reduction in vehicle idling and idling duration from the first week of the study to the last. The results of this study support additional research planned by the City to measure the reduction in fine particulate matter due to behavioral interventions at schools.

Published Dec 9, 2019

Burgess, A. (n.d.). Limiting Exposure to Traffic-Related Air Pollution Near Denver Public Schools Through Anti-Idling Campaigns. North Carolina State University Libraries. Retrieved March 24, 2020, from https://repository.lib.ncsu.edu/handle/1840.20/37205

We estimate the causal effects of acute fine particulate matter exposure on mortality, health care use, and medical costs among the US elderly using Medicare data. We instrument for air pollution using changes in local wind direction and develop a new approach that uses machine learning to estimate the life-years lost due to pollution exposure. Finally, we characterize treatment effect heterogeneity using both life expectancy and generic machine learning inference. Both approaches find that mortality effects are concentrated in about 25 percent of the elderly population.

Published Dec 1, 2019

Deryugina, T., Heutel, G., Miller, N. H., Molitor, D., & Reif, J. (2019). The mortality and medical costs of air pollution: Evidence from changes in wind direction. American Economic Review, 109(12), 4178–4219. https://doi.org/10.1257/aer.20180279

You would be hard‐pressed in 2019 not to be aware of the worldwide social movement and protests relating to climate change. In September this year, millions of school children and adults around the world took to the street demanding urgent action in response to escalating concerns relating to the environment. Furthermore, the United Nations Climate Summit in New York described climate change as the defining issue of our time and the Australian Medical Association recently declared climate change as a health emergency following the lead of many international medical bodies. Clearly, our climate is changing; we are experiencing weather events that are more frequent and intense, and last longer (Jackman et al. 2018). As a result, all health professionals have an important role to play in this regard in the future.

Published Nov 14, 2019

Usher, K., Durkin, J., & Bhullar, N. (2019). Eco‐anxiety: How thinking about climate change‐related environmental decline is affecting our mental health. International Journal of Mental Health Nursing, 28(6), 1233–1234. https://doi.org/10.1111/inm.12673

We estimate the effect of short-term air pollution exposure (PM2.5 and ozone) on several categories of crime, with a particular emphasis on aggressive behavior. To identify this relationship, we combine detailed daily data on crime, air pollution, and weather for an eight-year period across the United States. Our primary identification strategy employs extremely high dimensional fixed effects and we perform a series of robustness checks to address confounding variation between temperature and air pollution. We find a robust positive effect of increased air pollution on violent crimes, and specifically assaults, but no relationship between increases in air pollution and property crimes. The effects are present in and out of the home, at levels well below Ambient Air Pollution Standards, and PM2.5 effects are strongest at lower temperatures. The results suggest that a 10% reduction in daily PM2.5 and ozone could save $1.4 billion in crime costs per year, a previously overlooked cost associated with pollution.

Published Nov 1, 2019

Burkhardt, J., Bayham, J., Wilson, A., Carter, E., Berman, J. D., O’Dell, K., Ford, B., Fischer, E. V., & Pierce, J. R. (2019). The effect of pollution on crime: Evidence from data on particulate matter and ozone. Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, 98, 102267. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jeem.2019.102267

Background
New evidence suggests that particulate matter less than 2.5 μm in diameter (PM2.5) is associated with late-onset dementia (LOD). However, epidemiological studies for the entire population are lacking.

Methods
We analyzed approximately 94 million follow-up records from fee-for-service Medicare records for 13 million Medicare beneficiaries residing in the southeastern United States (U.S.) from 2000 to 2013. We used spatially and temporally continuous PM2.5 exposure data. To account for time-varying PM2.5 levels, we applied an Andersen-Gill counting process proportional hazard model; we stratified our analyses by subtype of dementia and level of urbanization of residence.

Results
During a median follow-up of 6 years, 1,409,599 hospitalizations with dementia occurred. The adjusted hazard ratio (HR) of hospitalization with dementia was 1.049 (95% confidence interval [CI], 1.048 to 1.051) per 1 μg/m3 increase in annual PM2.5. The hazard ratio for vascular dementia was higher (HR, 1.086; 95% CI, 1.082 to 1.090). In large, the magnitude of the effect grew as the level of urbanization increased (HR, 1.036; 95% CI, 1.031 to 1.041 in rural areas versus HR, 1.052; 95% CI, 1.050 to 1.054 in metropolitan areas).

Conclusions
Long-term exposure to higher PM2.5 was associated with increased hospitalizations with dementia.

Published Nov 1, 2019

Lee, M., Schwartz, J., Wang, Y., Dominici, F., & Zanobetti, A. (2019). Long-term effect of fine particulate matter on hospitalization with dementia. Environmental Pollution, 254, 112926. https://doi.org/10.1016/J.ENVPOL.2019.07.094

Federal agencies in the current United States (US) administration have sought to relax energy policies (EPs). These actions are expected to increase emissions of both greenhouse gases and conventional air pollutants, which are known to react in the atmosphere to form ozone, a pollutant harmful to humans. We applied an integrated modeling framework to show that compared with a scenario with continued EPs and a stationary climate, a relaxation of EPs coupled with warming will significantly increase the number of US counties with ozone concentrations above the current health-based standard by 2050, potentially increasing control costs up to several billion dollars. We showed that a warmer climate will increase the ozone production efficiency. The interaction of conventional air pollutant emissions with climate feedbacks should be considered and integrated when addressing the air-quality cobenefits and disbenefits of EPs.

Published Oct 25, 2019

Shen, H., Chen, Y., Li, Y., Russell, A. G., Hu, Y., Henneman, L. R. F., Odman, M. T., Shih, J.-S., Burtraw, D., Shao, S., Yu, H., Qin, M., Chen, Z., Lawal, A. S., Pavur, G. K., Brown, M. A., & Driscoll, C. T. (2019). Relaxing Energy Policies Coupled with Climate Change Will Significantly Undermine Efforts to Attain US Ozone Standards. One Earth, 1(2), 229–239. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.oneear.2019.09.006

There is strong evidence that short-run fluctuations in air pollution negatively impact infant health and contemporaneous adult health, but there is less evidence on the causal link between long-term exposure to air pollution and increased adult mortality. This project estimates the impact of long-term exposure to air pollution on mortality by leveraging quasi-random variation in pollution levels generated by wind patterns near major highways. I combine geocoded data on the residence of every decedent in Los Angeles over three years, high-frequency wind data, and Census short form data. Using these data, I estimate the effect of downwind exposure to highway-generated pollutants on the age-specific mortality rate by using orientation to the nearest major highway as an instrument for pollution exposure. I find that doubling the percentage of time spent downwind of a highway increases mortality among individuals 75 or older by 3.8%–6.5%. These estimates are robust and imply significant loss of life years.

Published Oct 23, 2019

Anderson, M. L. (2019). As the Wind Blows: The Effects of Long-Term Exposure to Air Pollution on Mortality. Journal of the European Economic Association, 0(0), 1–42. https://doi.org/10.1093/jeea/jvz051

On September 9, 2018, Hurricane Irma swept across south Florida, leaving a path of destruction across the entire state. Miami-Dade County, at the southern tip of the state, avoided a direct hit. However, the storm left the county and its dozens of municipalities with gigantic mounds of storm debris. As the weeks went by, the piles festered and frustration with the pace of the clean-up mounted. Two dump sites in particular drew the attention of media and community activists: a park ringed by single family homes in Liberty City, a black community in the heart of Miami; and historic Virginia Key, the only beach open to black citizens under Jim Crow segregation. This research examines three narratives -- media coverage, official explanations from local governments, and reactions on social media -- as a way to investigate how the dumping of storm debris in black spaces was justified, interrogated, and contested in the aftermath of one of the worst hurricanes to strike Miami-Dade County in over a decade. Climate change models predict the increasing frequency of super storms like Irma, and discussions of how coastal cities respond in terms of infrastructure and resiliency are growing. This investigation looks at two components of this response that have not been as widely considered: what are the institutional and citizen responses in the aftermath of these storms, and how will issues of race and historic geographic marginalization be either acknowledged or ignored as the problems associated with climate change grow ever more acute and pressing.

Published Oct 14, 2019

Shumow, M. (2019). “Why is it Here, of All Places?”: Debris Cleanup, Black Space, and Narratives of Marginalized Geographies in Post-Irma Miami-Dade. In Climate Change, Media & Culture: Critical Issues in Global Environmental Communication (pp. 13–32). Emerald Publishing Limited. https://doi.org/10.1108/978-1-78769-967-020191004

We use population-level data of all Flordia children born between 1994 and 2002 to examine the long-term effect f prenatal exposure to environmental toxicants from a Superfund (toxic waste) site. We compare siblings who faced different toxic exposures during gestation because of Superfund site cleanup (or, in other specifications, because of a family move). Children exposed to toxic waste while gestating have substantially worse cognitive and behavioral outcoes thatn do their unaffected siblings. These results are much larger than what would have been predicted were the effects Superfund site exposure operating solely through standard measrues of birth outcomes.

Published Oct 3, 2019

Persico, C., Figlio, D., & Roth, J. (2019). The Developmental Consequences of Superfund Sites. Journal of Labor Economics. https://doi.org/10.1086/706807