Modeling variability in air pollution-related health damages from individual airport emissions

In this study, we modeled concentrations of fine particulate matter (PM_2.5) and ozone (O₃) attributable to precursor emissions from individual airports in the United States, developing airport-specific health damage functions (deaths per 1000t of precursor emissions) and physically-interpretable regression models to explain variability in these functions. We applied the Community Multiscale Air Quality model using the Decoupled Direct Method to isolate PM_2.5- or O₃-related contributions from precursor pollutants emitted by 66 individual airports. We linked airport- and pollutant-specific concentrations with population data and literature-based concentration-response functions to create health damage functions. Deaths per 1000t of primary PM_2.5 emissions ranged from 3 to 160 across airports, with variability explained by population patterns within 500km of the airport. Deaths per 1000t of precursors for secondary PM_2.5 varied across airports from 0.1 to 2.7 for NOx, 0.06 to 2.9 for SO₂, and 0.06 to 11 for VOCs, with variability explained by population patterns and ambient concentrations influencing particle formation. Deaths per 1000t of O₃ precursors ranged from -0.004 to 1.0 for NOx and 0.03 to 1.5 for VOCs, with strong seasonality and influence of ambient concentrations. Our findings reinforce the importance of location- and source-specific health damage functions in design of health-maximizing emissions control policies.