Reducing pollution produces measurable health gains, said a study released on Wednesday that found cleaner air had lengthened life expectancy by five months in 51 US cities.
Researchers at Brigham Young University and Harvard School of Public Health found that average life expectancy increased by three years between 1980 and 2000 in those cities and that approximately five months of that gain owed to cleaner air.
“Such a significant increase in life expectancy attributable to reducing air pollution is remarkable,” said C. Arden Pope III, a BYU epidemiologist and lead author on the study, published in the New England Journal of Medicine. “We find that we’re getting a substantial return on our investments in improving our air quality. Not only are we getting cleaner air that improves our environment, but it is improving our public health.”
The researchers compared data in 51 US cities on changes in air pollution between those 20 years and the life expectancies of residents during those years.
They applied advanced statistical models to account for other factors possibly affecting life spans, such as changes in demographics, income, migration, population, education and cigarette smoking.
Cities that had previously been the most polluted and saw the most extensive clean-ups added an average 10 months to residents’ lives.
By the end of the study period, life expectancy had increased by 2.72 years in the cities studied, with up to five months, or 15 percent of that gain owing to reduced air pollution.
Other studies have shown that these gains probably owe to a decrease in cardiovascular and cardiopulmonary diseases often linked to air pollution.
Pope and study co-author Douglas Dockery of Harvard teamed up with other researchers on studies published in the early 1990s that found that “PM2.5” — pollutants less than 2.5 microns in diameter — had negative health effects. The Environmental Protection Agency used those and other studies as a basis to tighten air pollution standards in 1997.
Analysis in the latest study found that for every decrease of 10 micrograms per cubic meter of particulate pollution in a city, the average life expectancy of residents in the city grew by more than seven months. The average PM2.5 levels in the 51 cities studied dropped from 21 to 14 micrograms per cubic meter during the 1980s and 1990s. Health gains were also found in cities that initially had relatively clean air, but then made further improvements in reducing air pollution.
“There is an important positive message here that the efforts to reduce particulate air pollution concentrations in the United States over the past 20 years have led to substantial and measurable improvements in life expectancy,” Pope said.
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese