The third approach, targeting emissions in specific locations, is not commonly done, but is something overburdened communities have been asking for for years.”įine particulate matter pollution, or PM2.5, is less than 2.5 micrometers in diameter - about 3% of the diameter of a human hair. “The two approaches that mirror aspects of the Clean Air Act were pretty weak at addressing disparities. So we thought, what’s it going to take? Here, we tried three approaches to see which would be the best for addressing these disparities,” said senior author Julian Marshall, a UW professor of civil and environmental engineering. “In earlier research, we wanted to know which pollution sources were responsible for these disparities, but we found that nearly all sources lead to unequal exposures. 24 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. While the first two approaches - based on the Clean Air Act - didn’t get rid of disparities, the community-specific approach eliminated pollution disparities and reduced pollution exposure overall.
The researchers used national emissions data to model each strategy: targeting specific emissions sources across the U.S., requiring regions to adhere to specific concentration standards or reducing emissions in specific communities. The team compared two approaches that mirror main aspects of the Clean Air Act and a third approach that is not commonly used to see if it would be better at addressing disparities across the contiguous U.S. While air quality has improved dramatically over the past 50 years thanks in part to the Clean Air Act, people of color at every income level in the United States are still exposed to higher-than-average levels of air pollution.Ī team led by researchers at the University of Washington wanted to know if the Clean Air Act is capable of reducing these disparities or if a new approach would be needed. A team led by researchers at the University of Washington compared three potential strategies for reducing fine particulate matter pollution disparities across the contiguous U.S.
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