A Preliminary Estimate of the Total Impact of Ozone and PM2.5 Air Pollution on Premature Mortalities in the United States

Abstract

Our objective is to estimate the excess mortalities resulting from ambient present- day concentrations of O3 and PM2.5 in the United States. We use the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Community Multi-scale Air Quality (CMAQ) version 4.3 model to simulate present levels of air pollution. We then remove anthropogenic emissions and repeat the simulations. Using epidemiological doseresponse functions we use the increase in pollution levels between the two simulations to estimate total mortalities resulting from exposure to O3 and PM2.5. We estimate that in 1996 107,000 and 162,000 additional mortalities occurred in the United States due to increased exposure to ambient O3 and PM2.5 concentrations respectively. The total mortalities incurred, 269,000 deaths, is more than ten times larger than the 23,000 mortalities that are predicted to be averted in 2010 from implementation of the 1990 CAAA. Our analysis indicates that tens of thousands of lives could be saved by substantial further improvements in U.S. air quality.