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.
A string of rape and assault allegations against the son of Norway’s future queen have plunged the royal family into its “biggest scandal” ever, wrapping up an annus horribilis for the monarchy. The legal troubles surrounding Marius Borg Hoiby, the 27-year-old son born of a relationship before Norwegian Crown Princess Mette-Marit’s marriage to Norwegian Crown Prince Haakon, have dominated the Scandinavian country’s headlines since August. The tall strapping blond with a “bad boy” look — often photographed in tuxedos, slicked back hair, earrings and tattoos — was arrested in Oslo on Aug. 4 suspected of assaulting his girlfriend the previous night. A photograph
The US deployed a reconnaissance aircraft while Japan and the Philippines sent navy ships in a joint patrol in the disputed South China Sea yesterday, two days after the allied forces condemned actions by China Coast Guard vessels against Philippine patrol ships. The US Indo-Pacific Command said the joint patrol was conducted in the Philippines’ exclusive economic zone by allies and partners to “uphold the right to freedom of navigation and overflight “ and “other lawful uses of the sea and international airspace.” Those phrases are used by the US, Japan and the Philippines to oppose China’s increasingly aggressive actions in the
‘GOOD POLITICS’: He is a ‘pragmatic radical’ and has moderated his rhetoric since the height of his radicalism in 2014, a lecturer in contemporary Islam said Abu Mohammed al-Jolani is the leader of the Islamist alliance that spearheaded an offensive that rebels say brought down Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and ended five decades of Baath Party rule in Syria. Al-Jolani heads Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), which is rooted in Syria’s branch of al-Qaeda. He is a former extremist who adopted a more moderate posture in order to achieve his goals. Yesterday, as the rebels entered Damascus, he ordered all military forces in the capital not to approach public institutions. Last week, he said the objective of his offensive, which saw city after city fall from government control, was to
IVY LEAGUE GRADUATE: Suspect Luigi Nicholas Mangione, whose grandfather was a self-made real-estate developer and philanthropist, had a life of privilege The man charged with murder in the killing of the CEO of UnitedHealthcare made it clear he was not going to make things easy on authorities, shouting unintelligibly and writhing in the grip of sheriff’s deputies as he was led into court and then objecting to being brought to New York to face trial. The displays of resistance on Tuesday were not expected to significantly delay legal proceedings for Luigi Nicholas Mangione, who was charged in last week’s Manhattan killing of Brian Thompson, the leader of the US’ largest medical insurance company. Little new information has come out about motivation,