Higher exposure to fine particulate air pollution (PM2.5) during infancy has been associated with lower economic earnings in adulthood in a new study from Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, and European University of Rome. The association was most pronounced in the midwestern and southern U.S.
Corresponding author Francesca Dominici, Clarence James Gamble Professor of Biostatistics, Population, and Data Science at Harvard Chan School and faculty director of the Harvard Data Science Initiative, said “The findings suggest that air pollution can have lasting impacts beyond health effects - and that these impacts vary across regions and populations.”
The researchers analysed data on PM2.5 exposure and economic earnings from 86 per cent of all U.S. census tracts - small statistical subdivisions of a county - from 1980 to 2010. They focused on people born from 1978-83, looking at their mean earnings in 2014-15 when they were between the ages of 31-37. They also measured economic mobility using a statistic called absolute upward mobility (AUM).
The study found that the higher a person’s exposure in infancy to PM2.5, the lower their earnings in adulthood. Nationwide, on average, an increase in PM2.5 exposure by one microgram per cubic meter (μg/m3) in 1982 was associated with a 1.146 per cent lower AUM in 2015. The study also found that PM2.5 exposure had an outsize impact on AUM in specific regions of the U.S., particularly in the Midwest and South.
Read more: Air pollution may limit economic mobility | News | Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health