Impact of National Ambient Air Quality Standards Nonattainment Designations on Particulate Pollution and Health.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Despite dramatic air quality improvement in the United States over the past decades, recent years have brought renewed scrutiny and uncertainty surrounding the effectiveness of specific regulatory programs for continuing to improve air quality and public health outcomes.

Methods

We employ causal inference methods and a spatial hierarchical regression model to characterize the extent to which a designation of "nonattainment" with the 1997 National Ambient Air Quality Standard for ambient fine particulate matter (PM2.5) in 2005 causally affected ambient PM2.5 and health outcomes among over 10 million Medicare beneficiaries in the Eastern United States in 2009-2012.

Results

We found that, on average across all retained study locations, reductions in ambient PM

SUBMITTER: Zigler CM 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5792368 | biostudies-literature | 2018 Mar

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature