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Research Priorities
The Clean Air Research Program in EPA’s Office of Research and Development (ORD) is focused on three primary research activities or themes. They are: PM and ozone research; multipollutant research, and fundamental air pollution research to support future regulatory decision making.
PM and Ozone Research
The Clean Air Research Program provides the critical science, including data, methods, and models, needed by the Agency to review and implement its ambient (outdoor) air standards to protect public health under the Clean Air Act. Likewise, these methods and models are provided to the states, communities, and tribes charged with implementing and upholding these air quality standards. Simultaneously, the program is developing scientific approaches to better track health and environmental impacts of its regulatory decisions targeting EPA's goal for clean air.
Significant research contributions have been made to understanding two common air contaminants regulated by the EPA—particulate matter (PM) and ozone—which have long been considered high-risk air pollutants. Research on PM has resulted in major advances in the field, demonstrating that PM air pollution is linked to increases in respiratory and cardiac health problems, resulting in loss of school and work time, hospitalization, and even premature death.
The research program is also a leader in ozone research, providing some of the earliest evidence of the risks of this pollutant on respiratory health, especially to asthmatics. Ozone research continues, especially as a prominent component of the potential health outcomes associated with outdoor (ambient) air pollutant mixtures, while acting as a reactive intermediate in the photochemical formation of secondary PM. The relationship of hazardous air pollutants (HAPs) to health risks is also being investigated as part of research on mixtures.
Multipollutant Research
A new research area is the development of multipollutant approaches that can be used to improve health risk assessments and advance control strategies for air pollution. Historically, research has largely focused on individual air pollutants, like PM and ozone, with advances in the science serving to improve knowledge about their impacts on health.
At the heart of this multipollutant approach is the identification and characterization of source-to- health linkages that EPA can use to develop more effective and strategic controls of air pollution. Controls at the source generally mitigate several pollutants simultaneously.
Fundamental Research
The research requires the maintenance and continued development of core scientific capabilities that advance the knowledge and tools needed to assess and improve our outdoor air quality. This core or fundamental research is conducted jointly with the Human Health Research Program in the Office of Research and Development. In addition, advances in atmospheric science are coordinated with the Global Change Research Program in the same office.