1
|
Li Y, Zhao Y, Kleeman MJ. Formaldehyde Exposure Racial Disparities in Southeast Texas. ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY 2024; 58:4680-4690. [PMID: 38412365 PMCID: PMC10938643 DOI: 10.1021/acs.est.3c02282] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/28/2023] [Revised: 02/07/2024] [Accepted: 02/08/2024] [Indexed: 02/29/2024]
Abstract
Formaldehyde (HCHO) exposures during a full year were calculated for different race/ethnicity groups living in Southeast Texas using a chemical transport model tagged to track nine emission categories. Petroleum and industrial emissions were the largest anthropogenic sources of HCHO exposure in Southeast Texas, accounting for 44% of the total HCHO population exposure. Approximately 50% of the HCHO exposures associated with petroleum and industrial sources were directly emitted (primary), while the other 50% formed in the atmosphere (secondary) from precursor emissions of reactive compounds such as ethylene and propylene. Biogenic emissions also formed secondary HCHO that accounted for 11% of the total population-weighted exposure across the study domain. Off-road equipment contributed 3.7% to total population-weighted exposure in Houston, while natural gas combustion contributed 5% in Beaumont. Mobile sources accounted for 3.7% of the total HCHO population exposure, with less than 10% secondary contribution. Exposure disparity patterns changed with the location. Hispanic and Latino residents were exposed to HCHO concentrations +1.75% above average in Houston due to petroleum and industrial sources and natural gas sources. Black and African American residents in Beaumont were exposed to HCHO concentrations +7% above average due to petroleum and industrial sources, off-road equipment, and food cooking. Asian residents in Beaumont were exposed to HCHO concentrations that were +2.5% above average due to HCHO associated with petroleum and industrial sources, off-road vehicles, and food cooking. White residents were exposed to below average HCHO concentrations in all domains because their homes were located further from primary HCHO emission sources. Given the unique features of the exposure disparities in each region, tailored solutions should be developed by local stakeholders. Potential options to consider in the development of those solutions include modifying processes to reduce emissions, installing control equipment to capture emissions, or increasing the distance between industrial sources and residential neighborhoods.
Collapse
Affiliation(s)
- Yiting Li
- Department
of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of California, Davis, California 95616, United States
| | - Yusheng Zhao
- Department
of Land, Air, and Water Resources, University
of California, Davis, California 95616, United States
| | - Michael J. Kleeman
- Department
of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of California, Davis, California 95616, United States
| |
Collapse
|
2
|
Picciano P, Qiu M, Eastham SD, Yuan M, Reilly J, Selin NE. Air quality related equity implications of U.S. decarbonization policy. Nat Commun 2023; 14:5543. [PMID: 37726275 PMCID: PMC10509219 DOI: 10.1038/s41467-023-41131-x] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/28/2022] [Accepted: 08/23/2023] [Indexed: 09/21/2023] Open
Abstract
Climate policies that target greenhouse gas emissions can improve air quality by reducing co-emitted air pollutant emissions. However, the extent to which climate policy could contribute to the targets of reducing existing pollution disparities across different populations remains largely unknown. We quantify potential air pollution exposure reductions under U.S. federal carbon policy, considering implications of resulting health benefits for exposure disparities across U.S. racial/ethnic groups. We focus on policy cases that achieve reductions of 40-60% in 2030 economy-wide carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions, when compared with 2005 emissions. The 50% CO2 reduction policy case reduces average fine particulate matter (PM2.5) exposure across racial/ethnic groups, with greatest benefit for non-Hispanic Black (-0.44 μg/m3) and white populations (-0.37 μg/m3). The average exposure disparity for racial/ethnic minorities rises from 12.4% to 13.1%. Applying an optimization approach to multiple emissions reduction scenarios, we find that no alternate combination of reductions from different CO2 sources would substantially mitigate exposure disparities. Results suggest that CO2-based strategies for this range of reductions are insufficient for fully mitigating PM2.5 exposure disparities between white and racial/ethnic minority populations; addressing disparities may require larger-scale structural changes.
Collapse
Affiliation(s)
- Paul Picciano
- Institute for Data, Systems, and Society, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, 02139, USA
| | - Minghao Qiu
- Doerr School of Sustainability, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, 94305, USA
- Center for Innovation in Global Health, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, 94305, USA
| | - Sebastian D Eastham
- Laboratory for Aviation and the Environment, Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, 02139, USA
- Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Change, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, 02139, USA
| | - Mei Yuan
- Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Change, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, 02139, USA
| | - John Reilly
- Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Change, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, 02139, USA
| | - Noelle E Selin
- Institute for Data, Systems, and Society, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, 02139, USA.
- Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, 02139, USA.
| |
Collapse
|
3
|
Coomes KE, Buonocore JJ, Levy JI, Arter C, Arunachalam S, Buckley L, Berberian A, Gunasti J, Perera F. Assessment of the health benefits to children of a transportation climate policy in New York City. ENVIRONMENTAL RESEARCH 2022; 215:114165. [PMID: 36087775 DOI: 10.1016/j.envres.2022.114165] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/01/2022] [Revised: 08/17/2022] [Accepted: 08/18/2022] [Indexed: 06/15/2023]
Abstract
BACKGROUND Assessments of health and environmental effects of clean air and climate policies have revealed substantial health benefits due to reductions in air pollution, but have included few pediatric outcomes or assessed benefits at the neighborhood level. OBJECTIVES We estimated benefits across a suite of child health outcomes in 42 New York City (NYC) neighborhoods under the proposed regional Transportation and Climate Initiative. We also estimated their distribution across racial/ethnic and socioeconomic groups. METHODS We estimated changes in ambient fine particulate matter (PM2.5) and nitrogen dioxide (NO2) concentrations associated with on-road emissions under nine different predefined cap-and-invest scenarios. Health outcomes, including selected adverse birth, respiratory, and neurodevelopmental outcomes, were estimated using a program similar to the U.S. EPA BenMAP program. We stratified the associated monetized benefits across racial/ethnic and socioeconomic groups. RESULTS The benefits varied widely over the different cap-and-investment scenarios. For a 25% reduction in carbon emissions from 2022 to 2032 and a strategy prioritizing public transit investments, NYC would have an estimated 48 fewer medical visits for childhood asthma, 13,000 avoided asthma exacerbations not requiring medical visits, 640 fewer respiratory illnesses unrelated to asthma, and 9 avoided adverse birth outcomes (infant mortality, preterm birth, and term low birth weight) annually, starting in 2032. The total estimated annual avoided costs are $22 million. City-wide, Black and Hispanic children would experience 1.7 times the health benefits per capita than White and Non-Hispanic White children, respectively. Under the same scenario, neighborhoods experiencing the highest poverty rates in NYC would experience about 2.5 times the health benefits per capita than the lowest poverty neighborhoods. CONCLUSION A cap-and-invest strategy to reduce carbon emissions from the transportation sector could provide substantial health and monetized benefits to children in NYC through reductions in criteria pollutant concentrations, with greater benefits among Black and Hispanic children.
Collapse
Affiliation(s)
- Kaitlyn E Coomes
- Columbia Center for Children's Environmental Health, Mailman School of Public Health, Columbia University, New York City, NY, USA
| | | | | | - Calvin Arter
- Institute for the Environment, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, NC, USA
| | | | - Laura Buckley
- School of Public Health, Boston University, Boston, MA, USA
| | - Alique Berberian
- Columbia Center for Children's Environmental Health, Mailman School of Public Health, Columbia University, New York City, NY, USA
| | - Jonathan Gunasti
- Rollins School of Public Health, Emory Univerity, Atlanta, GA, USA
| | - Frederica Perera
- Columbia Center for Children's Environmental Health, Mailman School of Public Health, Columbia University, New York City, NY, USA.
| |
Collapse
|
4
|
Wang Y, Apte JS, Hill JD, Ivey CE, Patterson RF, Robinson AL, Tessum CW, Marshall JD. Location-specific strategies for eliminating US national racial-ethnic [Formula: see text] exposure inequality. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 2022; 119:e2205548119. [PMID: 36279443 PMCID: PMC9636929 DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2205548119] [Citation(s) in RCA: 33] [Impact Index Per Article: 16.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/31/2022] [Accepted: 08/30/2022] [Indexed: 07/22/2023] Open
Abstract
Air pollution levels in the United States have decreased dramatically over the past decades, yet national racial-ethnic exposure disparities persist. For ambient fine particulate matter ([Formula: see text]), we investigate three emission-reduction approaches and compare their optimal ability to address two goals: 1) reduce the overall population average exposure ("overall average") and 2) reduce the difference in the average exposure for the most exposed racial-ethnic group versus for the overall population ("national inequalities"). We show that national inequalities in exposure can be eliminated with minor emission reductions (optimal: ~1% of total emissions) if they target specific locations. In contrast, achieving that outcome using existing regulatory strategies would require eliminating essentially all emissions (if targeting specific economic sectors) or is not possible (if requiring urban regions to meet concentration standards). Lastly, we do not find a trade-off between the two goals (i.e., reducing overall average and reducing national inequalities); rather, the approach that does the best for reducing national inequalities (i.e., location-specific strategies) also does as well as or better than the other two approaches (i.e., sector-specific and meeting concentration standards) for reducing overall averages. Overall, our findings suggest that incorporating location-specific emissions reductions into the US air quality regulatory framework 1) is crucial for eliminating long-standing national average exposure disparities by race-ethnicity and 2) can benefit overall average exposures as much as or more than the sector-specific and concentration-standards approaches.
Collapse
Affiliation(s)
- Yuzhou Wang
- Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of Washington, Seattle, WA 98195
| | - Joshua S. Apte
- Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of California, Berkeley, CA 94720
- School of Public Health, University of California, Berkeley, CA 94720
| | - Jason D. Hill
- Department of Bioproducts and Biosystems Engineering, University of Minnesota, St. Paul, MN 55108
| | - Cesunica E. Ivey
- Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of California, Berkeley, CA 94720
| | - Regan F. Patterson
- Center for Policy Analysis and Research, Congressional Black Caucus Foundation, Washington, DC 20036
| | - Allen L. Robinson
- Department of Mechanical Engineering, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA 15213
| | - Christopher W. Tessum
- Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of Illinois, Urbana, IL 61801
| | - Julian D. Marshall
- Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of Washington, Seattle, WA 98195
| |
Collapse
|
5
|
Research on Carbon Emissions of Road Traffic in Chengdu City Based on a LEAP Model. SUSTAINABILITY 2022. [DOI: 10.3390/su14095625] [Citation(s) in RCA: 5] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 02/04/2023]
Abstract
With the continuous increase in the number of vehicles, the proportion of carbon emissions from road traffic in cities has significantly increased, putting pressure on the overall carbon emission reduction of cities The implementation of low-carbon transportation has, therefore, become crucial to urban emission reductions. Based on the situation of vehicles in Chengdu, this study uses the LEAP model to construct a road traffic development scenario in Chengdu from 2020 to 2025. The research focuses on common greenhouse gases that contribute to carbon emissions such as CO2, N2O, and CH4 from motor vehicles. With current policies being considered, we simulate and evaluate energy consumption and carbon emissions under two energy-saving and emission reduction scenarios: low carbon (LC) and strengthen low carbon (SLC). The results show that carbon emissions significantly improve under the LC scenario, and that the carbon emissions of the road traffic of Chengdu will peak before 2030 under the SLC scenario.
Collapse
|