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. 2019 Mar 26;116(13):6001-6006.
doi: 10.1073/pnas.1818859116. Epub 2019 Mar 11.

Inequity in consumption of goods and services adds to racial-ethnic disparities in air pollution exposure

Christopher W Tessum  1 , Joshua S Apte  2 , Andrew L Goodkind  3 , Nicholas Z Muller  4 , Kimberley A Mullins  5 , David A Paolella  1 , Stephen Polasky  6   7 , Nathaniel P Springer  8 , Sumil K Thakrar  9 , Julian D Marshall  1 , Jason D Hill  10
Affiliations

Inequity in consumption of goods and services adds to racial-ethnic disparities in air pollution exposure

Christopher W Tessum et al. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. .

Abstract

Fine particulate matter (PM2.5) air pollution exposure is the largest environmental health risk factor in the United States. Here, we link PM2.5 exposure to the human activities responsible for PM2.5 pollution. We use these results to explore "pollution inequity": the difference between the environmental health damage caused by a racial-ethnic group and the damage that group experiences. We show that, in the United States, PM2.5 exposure is disproportionately caused by consumption of goods and services mainly by the non-Hispanic white majority, but disproportionately inhaled by black and Hispanic minorities. On average, non-Hispanic whites experience a "pollution advantage": They experience ∼17% less air pollution exposure than is caused by their consumption. Blacks and Hispanics on average bear a "pollution burden" of 56% and 63% excess exposure, respectively, relative to the exposure caused by their consumption. The total disparity is caused as much by how much people consume as by how much pollution they breathe. Differences in the types of goods and services consumed by each group are less important. PM2.5 exposures declined ∼50% during 2002-2015 for all three racial-ethnic groups, but pollution inequity has remained high.

Keywords: air quality; environmental justice; fine particulate matter; input–output; life cycle assessment.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Figures

Fig. 1.
Fig. 1.
Sources of US mortality from PM2.5. PM2.5 concentrations resulting from emissions from each emitter group [maps on Left; color scale contains a discontinuity at the 99th percentile of concentrations (i.e., 3.1 μg⋅m−3)] and relationships among PM2.5 health impacts as attributed to emitters (Left bar), end uses (Middle bar), and end users (Right bar). The height of the bar on the Left shows the number of PM2.5-attributable premature deaths caused by the physical production of emissions from each group of emitters, the height of the Middle bar shows the number of deaths caused by demand for each group of end uses, and the height of the bar on the Right shows the number of deaths caused by different types of end users. The blue connecting lines show relationships among emitters, end uses, and end users; connecting lines representing <1,000 deaths are not shown. (Detailed relationships between end uses and emitters for each racial–ethnic end-user group are shown in Fig. 2; time trends are shown in SI Appendix, Fig. S4.)
Fig. 2.
Fig. 2.
Average PM2.5 exposure experienced and caused by racial–ethnic groups. Total exposure to PM2.5 caused by population-adjusted group consumption (“caused,” or Cg) and group exposure to PM2.5 caused by total personal consumption (“exposed,” or Eg), stratified by racial–ethnic group. Pollution inequity is the percent difference between a group’s “exposed” and “caused” bars. Each group of bars shows the (A) emitters and (B) end uses responsible for the exposure, with gray connecting lines showing relationships among emitters and end uses. Connecting lines representing <0.04 μg⋅m−3 are not shown.
Fig. 3.
Fig. 3.
Pollution inequity contributions and trends. (A) Contributions of differences in consumption (caused, or Cg) and location of residence (exposed, or Eg) to pollution inequity. (B) Exposure of each racial–ethnic group to PM2.5 caused by the total combined personal consumption of all groups (exposed or Eg; solid lines) and total-population exposure to PM2.5 caused by each group’s population-adjusted consumption (caused, or Cg; dashed lines), 2003–2015. (C) Pollution inequity levels, 2003–2015.
Fig. 4.
Fig. 4.
Effect of magnitude and composition of consumption on PM2.5 exposure. Population-adjusted PM2.5 exposure (Left): actual population-adjusted exposure (as seen in Fig. 2). Magnitude-normalized PM2.5 exposure (Middle): hypothetical exposure in which the overall magnitude of per capita consumption for each race–ethnicity is adjusted to match “All” without changing the composition of goods and services consumed. Composition-normalized PM2.5 exposure (Right): hypothetical exposure where the composition of goods and services consumed by each race–ethnicity is adjusted to match All without changing the overall magnitude of consumption.
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