Sociodemographic and geographic variation in mortality attributable to air pollution in the United States

AbstractThere are large differences in premature mortality in the USA by racial/ethnic, education, rurality, and social vulnerability index groups. Using existing concentration-response functions, particulate matter (PM2.5) air pollution, population estimates at the tract level, and county-level mortality data, we estimated the degree to which these mortality discrepancies can be attributed to differences in exposure and susceptibility to PM2.5. We show that differences in mortality attributable to PM2.5were consistently more pronounced between racial/ethnic groups than by education, rurality, or social vulnerability index, with the Black American population having by far the highest proportion of deaths attributable to PM2.5in all years from 1990 to 2016. Over half of the difference in age-adjusted all-cause mortality between the Black American and non-Hispanic White population was attributable to PM2.5in the years 2000 to 2011.