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Title: Impacts of Air Pollution on Life Expectancy Across Multiple Generations: Race, Ethnicity, and Vulnerability Perspectives

Citation Type: Miscellaneous

Publication Year: 2023

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Abstract: It is well established that air pollution is linked to numerous adverse health outcomes. Many studies show disparate air pollution related health impacts in communities due to factors such as proximity to air pollutions sources, age, race/ethnicity, and income. The goal of this study is to build upon previous work by examining statewide air pollution exposure and life expectancy disparities across generations and within communities. The impact of air pollution on life expectancy over two generations in California, especially for vulnerable populations is not well studied. The University of California, Berkeley (UCB) will acquire statewide Medi-Cal population data for the years 1990-2020 for this research. The Medi-Cal population are followed by the California Department of Health Care Services (DHCS) monthly and have the most stable continuous enrollments, generally across multiple generations for a family. The dates of death will be used to estimate the degree to which life expectancies were impacted by air pollution from fine particulate matter (PM2.5), separately, for (1) the first and second generations of the entire Medi-Cal population, (2) raceethnicity and vulnerability subgroups of each generation, and (3) the first and second generations within families. UCB hypothesizes that, due to improvements in air quality, overall air pollution-specific impacts on life expectancy improved from the first to the second generation, however, certain areas and groups may not have experienced the same improvements. Therefore, UCB aims to investigate which communities and groups over two generations continued to experience the greatest disparities in PM2.5 exposure and air pollution-related impacts to life expectancy. To reduce exposure misclassification, UCB will apply daily surfaces of PM2.5 at 100 meters (m) spatial resolution that is being developed for the State for the years 1989-2020 (creating 1989 daily surfaces for rolling average exposure for death in 1990). The home address of an enrollee will be assigned daily PM2.5 exposure and one-year rolling average exposure to the date of death. The death of an enrollee will be matched through propensity score by two survival enrollees who had similar individual and neighborhood characteristics except air pollution. The same time span and length of exposure will also be estimated for the matched survival enrollees. The Medi-Cal population will be separated into two periods: 1990-2005 and 2006-2020. When comparing the same age group between the two periods, the 1990-2005 population will be identified as first generation and, subsequently, the 2006-2020 population for the second generation. To identify the impact of air pollution on life expectancy, the years of life expectancy lost due to air pollution will be modeled through differentiating life expectancies estimated with all cause and cause PM2.5- eliminated mortality information (i.e., cause PM2.5-eliminated mortality = all cause mortality – cause PM2.5 mortality). Life expectancies on all cause and cause PM2.5 eliminated cohorts will be estimated through the traditional life table method and area under the curve function. The impact of PM2.5 on mortality will be modeled through a series of age-group specific logistic regression models that estimate the causal impact of air pollution on mortality. The difference in air pollution specific life expectancy loss between the first and second generation will then be identified. These differences will be identified not only for all the Medi-Cal enrollees, but also for race-ethnicity and vulnerability subgroups. Numerous studies identified that vulnerable communities historically experienced and continue to experience the highest air pollution and the greatest health burden. The air pollution level from 1989-2020 will be aggregated at the census tract (CT) level to identify if similar exposure trends exist. Air pollution exposure hotspots using the top 25 percent most occurring CTs with the greatest PM2.5 for a generation will be created and overlaid with CT level vulnerability (identified through CalEnviroScreen1 ) to identify exposure disparities in vulnerable communities. Further, CT level race-ethnicity composition will be used as weights to adjust statewide life expectancy loss estimated for the race-ethnicity subgroups to create CT level life expectancy loss. Similarly, the CT level life expectancy loss will be overlaid with CT vulnerability to identify life expectancy disparities in vulnerable communities. The Regional Asthma Management & Prevention (RAMP) will take the lead on the community outreach of the project. RAMP will host two webinars at the beginning of the project to inform stakeholders about the research and to solicit feedback on the scope and direction. RAMP will also host two webinars toward the end of the project to share the research results. UCB will work with RAMP to prepare webinar materials that are in lay language. The community outreach will not only serve the purpose of presenting research ideas and results to communities through accessible languages but will also gain feedback on what areas of the research findings communities are most interested in and what form the research findings should take such as mapping of CT level air pollution exposure and life expectancy disparities in vulnerable communities. Overall, this study will provide CARB with information on the impacts of PM2.5 exposure on life expectancy in the first generation and the second generation not only for California residents overall, but also for race-ethnicity and vulnerability subgroups. The subgroups with the greatest reductions in life expectancy due to increased PM2.5 exposure will be identified. This study will also identify at the CT level the communities that consistently experienced both the highest air pollution exposure and had the greatest life expectancy loss due to air pollution. Further, the study will provide research findings on changes in life expectancy from air pollution from the first generation to the second generation within families.

Url: https://ww2.arb.ca.gov/sites/default/files/2023-04/UCB Su Scope of Work 041923.pdf

User Submitted?: No

Authors: Su, Jason G

Publisher: California Air Resource Board

Data Collections: IPUMS NHGIS

Topics: Health, Race and Ethnicity

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