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1.
PNAS Nexus ; 3(1): pgae017, 2024 Jan.
Article in English | MEDLINE | ID: mdl-38292536

ABSTRACT

On-road transportation is one of the largest contributors to air pollution in the United States. The COVID-19 pandemic provided the unintended experiment of reduced on-road emissions' impacts on air pollution due to lockdowns across the United States. Studies have quantified on-road transportation's impact on fine particulate matter (PM2.5)-attributable and ozone (O3)-attributable adverse health outcomes in the United States, and other studies have quantified air pollution-attributable health outcome reductions due to COVID-19-related lockdowns. We aim to quantify the PM2.5-attributable, O3-attributable, and nitrogen dioxide (NO2)-attributable adverse health outcomes from traffic emissions as well as the air pollution benefits due to reduced on-road activity during the pandemic in 2020. We estimate 79,400 (95% CI 46,100-121,000) premature mortalities each year due to on-road-attributable PM2.5, O3, and NO2. We further break down the impacts by pollutant and vehicle types (passenger [PAS] vs. freight [FRT] vehicles). We estimate PAS vehicles to be responsible for 63% of total impacts and FRT vehicles 37%. Nitrogen oxide (NOX) emissions from these vehicles are responsible for 78% of total impacts as it is a precursor for PM2.5 and O3. Utilizing annual vehicle miles traveled reductions in 2020, we estimate that 9,300 (5,500-14,000) deaths from air pollution were avoided in 2020 due to the state-specific reductions in on-road activity across the continental United States. By quantifying the air pollution public health benefits from lockdown-related reductions in on-road emissions, the results from this study stress the need for continued emission mitigation policies, like the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) recently proposed NOX standards for heavy-duty vehicles, to mitigate on-road transportation's public health impact.

2.
Environ Res ; 215(Pt 3): 114165, 2022 12.
Article in English | MEDLINE | ID: mdl-36087775

ABSTRACT

BACKGROUND: Assessments of health and environmental effects of clean air and climate policies have revealed substantial health benefits due to reductions in air pollution, but have included few pediatric outcomes or assessed benefits at the neighborhood level. OBJECTIVES: We estimated benefits across a suite of child health outcomes in 42 New York City (NYC) neighborhoods under the proposed regional Transportation and Climate Initiative. We also estimated their distribution across racial/ethnic and socioeconomic groups. METHODS: We estimated changes in ambient fine particulate matter (PM2.5) and nitrogen dioxide (NO2) concentrations associated with on-road emissions under nine different predefined cap-and-invest scenarios. Health outcomes, including selected adverse birth, respiratory, and neurodevelopmental outcomes, were estimated using a program similar to the U.S. EPA BenMAP program. We stratified the associated monetized benefits across racial/ethnic and socioeconomic groups. RESULTS: The benefits varied widely over the different cap-and-investment scenarios. For a 25% reduction in carbon emissions from 2022 to 2032 and a strategy prioritizing public transit investments, NYC would have an estimated 48 fewer medical visits for childhood asthma, 13,000 avoided asthma exacerbations not requiring medical visits, 640 fewer respiratory illnesses unrelated to asthma, and 9 avoided adverse birth outcomes (infant mortality, preterm birth, and term low birth weight) annually, starting in 2032. The total estimated annual avoided costs are $22 million. City-wide, Black and Hispanic children would experience 1.7 times the health benefits per capita than White and Non-Hispanic White children, respectively. Under the same scenario, neighborhoods experiencing the highest poverty rates in NYC would experience about 2.5 times the health benefits per capita than the lowest poverty neighborhoods. CONCLUSION: A cap-and-invest strategy to reduce carbon emissions from the transportation sector could provide substantial health and monetized benefits to children in NYC through reductions in criteria pollutant concentrations, with greater benefits among Black and Hispanic children.


Subject(s)
Air Pollutants , Air Pollution , Asthma , Premature Birth , Air Pollutants/analysis , Air Pollution/analysis , Asthma/chemically induced , Carbon , Child , Female , Humans , Infant , Infant, Newborn , New York City , Nitrogen Dioxide , Particulate Matter/analysis , Policy , Premature Birth/chemically induced
3.
Environ Int ; 158: 106958, 2022 01.
Article in English | MEDLINE | ID: mdl-34710732

ABSTRACT

Aviation emissions from landing and takeoff operations (LTO) can degrade local and regional air quality leading to adverse health outcomes in populations near airports and downwind. In this study we aim to quantify the air quality and health-related impacts from commercial LTO emissions in the continental U.S. for two recent years' inventories, 2011 and 2016. We quantify the LTO-attributable PM2.5, O3, and NO2 concentrations and health outcomes for mortality and multiple morbidity health endpoints. We also quantify the impacts from two scenarios representing a nation-wide implementation of 5% or 50% blends of sustainable alternative jet fuels. We estimate 80 (68-93) and 88 (75-100) PM2.5-attributable and 610 (310-920) and 1,100 (570-1,700) NO2-attributable premature mortalities in 2011 and 2016, respectively. We estimate a net decrease of 28 (14-56) and 54 (27-110) in O3-attributable premature mortalities across the U.S. in 2011 and 2016, respectively due to the large O3 titration effects near the airports. We also find that the asthma exacerbations due to NO2 exposures from LTO emissions increase from 100,000 (2,500-200,000) in 2011 to 170,000 (4,400-340,000) in 2016. Implementing a 5% or 50% blend of sustainable alternative jet fuel in 2016 results in a 1% or 18% reduction, respectively in PM2.5-attributable premature mortalities. Monetizing the value of avoided total premature mortalities, we find that a 50%-blended sustainable alternative jet fuel results in a 19% decrease in PM2.5 damages per ton of fuel burned and a 2% decrease in total damages per ton of fuel burned as compared to damages from traditional jet fuel. We also quantify health impacts by state and find California to be the most impacted by LTO emissions. We find that LTO-attributable PM2.5 and NO2 premature mortalities increase by 10% and 80%, respectively from 2011 to 2016 and that NO2-attributable premature mortalities are responsible for 91% of total LTO-attributable premature mortalities in both 2011 and 2016. And since we find LTO-attributable NO2 to be unaffected by the implementation of sustainable alternative jet fuels, additional approaches focused on NOX reductions in the combustor are needed to mitigate the air quality-related health impacts from LTO emissions.


Subject(s)
Air Pollutants , Air Pollution , Air Pollutants/analysis , Air Pollution/analysis , Aircraft , Airports , Particulate Matter/analysis , Vehicle Emissions/analysis
4.
J Chem Phys ; 140(18): 18A539, 2014 May 14.
Article in English | MEDLINE | ID: mdl-24832347

ABSTRACT

The theoretical description of sparse matter attracts much interest, in particular for those ground-state properties that can be described by density functional theory. One proposed approach, the van der Waals density functional (vdW-DF) method, rests on strong physical foundations and offers simple yet accurate and robust functionals. A very recent functional within this method called vdW-DF-cx [K. Berland and P. Hyldgaard, Phys. Rev. B 89, 035412 (2014)] stands out in its attempt to use an exchange energy derived from the same plasmon-based theory from which the nonlocal correlation energy was derived. Encouraged by its good performance for solids, layered materials, and aromatic molecules, we apply it to several systems that are characterized by competing interactions. These include the ferroelectric response in PbTiO3, the adsorption of small molecules within metal-organic frameworks, the graphite/diamond phase transition, and the adsorption of an aromatic-molecule on the Ag(111) surface. Our results indicate that vdW-DF-cx is overall well suited to tackle these challenging systems. In addition to being a competitive density functional for sparse matter, the vdW-DF-cx construction presents a more robust general-purpose functional that could be applied to a range of materials problems with a variety of competing interactions.

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