Association between county-level coal-fired power plant pollution and racial disparities in preterm births from 2000 to 2018.

ABSTRACT: Coal has historically been a primary energy source in the United States. The byproducts of coal combustion, such as fine particulate matter (PM2.5), have increasingly been associated with adverse birth outcomes. The goal of this study was to leverage the current progressive transition away from coal in the United States (U.S.) to assess whether coal PM2.5 is associated with preterm birth rates and whether this association differs by maternal Black/White race/ethnicity. Using a novel dispersion modeling approach, we estimated PM2.5 pollution from coal-fired power plants nationwide at the county-level during the study period (2000-2018). We also obtained county-level preterm birth rates for non-Hispanic White and non-Hispanic Black mothers. We used a generalized additive mixed model to estim

SUBMITTER: Daouda M 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8443161 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Mar

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature