We Don't All Breath The Same Air

Air pollution levels in the US have decreased dramatically over the past several decades, yet racial-ethnic exposure disparities persist.  There is a need to better understand the underlying causes of these disparities in order to develop more effective policies to address them.  In the first part of this talk, I will discuss the causes of existing disparities in fine particulate matter (PM_2.5) concentrations.  Combing data from mobile and fixed site monitoring, we have developed empirical exposure models for traffic and cooking primary PM_2.5 concentrations at high spatial resolution for the continental US.  These models indicate that traffic and cooking activities explain about seventy percent of the exposure disparities to PM2.5 at the national level.  The large contribution of cooking was unexpected and highlights the need for potential new approaches to address long standing environmental inequities. In the second part of the talk, I will discuss the potential effects of adoption of new technologies on exposure disparities.  To do this we have developed a reduced complexity air quality model to efficiently predict primary PM_2.5 concentrations at high spatial resolution across the entire continental US.  The model is designed to facilitate accounting for equity in environmental decision making.  To illustrate the application of the model, I will present a case study of the potential impacts of widespread vehicle electrification on environmental justice.

Speaker: Allen Robinson, Carnegie Mellon University