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Research Suggests Reductions in Particulate Air Pollution May Lead to Increased Life Expectancy
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Release date: 01/23/2009
Researchers funded in part by an EPA STAR grant have found that life expectancy can be increased by breathing cleaner air. C. Arden Pope, III, Ph.D., Majid Ezzati, Ph.D., and Douglas W. Dockery, Sc.D. have published their findings in the current issue of the New England Journal of Medicine. The investigators used regression models to analyze morbidity and mortality data from 51 metropolitan areas across the US. Using PM air monitoring data spanning three decades from various EPA databases including the Inhalable Particle Monitoring Network, the Aerometric Information Retrieval System, the researchers found that an increase in life expectancy of 6 months was attributable to a reduction of 10 micrograms of fine particulate matter (PM 2.5) from 1980 to 2000.
This finding has been reported by many key news sources including:
NBC Nightly News (1/21, story 10, 2:10, Williams): "A new study shows what should be obvious but hasn't always been a priority in America. Breathing cleaner air makes people live longer."
Los Angeles Times (1/22, Maugh): "Reductions in particulate air pollution during the 1980s and 1990s led to an average five-month increase in life expectancy in 51 U.S. cities,"."
Washington Post (1/22, A15) Green column : “Reducing air pollution has extended average life expectancy by five months for urban residents in dozens of U.S. cities over the past two decades”
New York Times (1/21) Vital Signs column: "each decrease of 10 micrograms of pollutant particles per cubic meter of air was associated with an increase of more than seven months in average life expectancy."
AP (1/22, Chang), Bloomberg News (1/22, Lopatto), USA Today (1/22, Szabo), BBC News (1/22), HealthDay (1/21, Edelson), MedPage Today (1/21, Neale), WebMD (1/21, Hendrick), MedWire (1/22, Holmes), the Scientific American (1/22, Lite) 60-Second Science blog, CNN (1/22, Harding), and the Salt Lake Tribune (1/22, Fahys) also covered the story.
For more information about this study see:
Special article from New England Journal of Medicine:
http://content.nejm.org/cgi/content/full/360/4/376
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For more information about EPA’s Clean Air and Particulate Matter Research see:
http://es.epa.gov/ncer/science/pm/
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