Differential impacts of COVID-19 lockdowns on PM 2.5 across the United States.

ABSTRACT: The COVID-19 pandemic has induced large-scale behavioral changes, presenting a unique opportunity to study how air pollution is affected by societal shifts. At 455 PM 2.5 monitoring sites across the United States, we conduct a causal inference analysis to determine the impacts of COVID-19 lockdowns on PM 2.5 . Our approach allows for rigorous confounding adjustment with highly spatio-temporally resolved effect estimates. We find that, with the exception of the Southwest, most of the US experienced increases in PM 2.5 compared to concentrations expected under business-as-usual. To investigate possible drivers of this phenomenon, we use a regression model to characterize the relationship of various factors with the observed impacts. Our findings have immense environmental policy relevance, s

SUBMITTER: Chen KL 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8496371 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature