Mortality Risk from : A Comparison of Modeling Approaches to Identify Disparities across Racial/Ethnic Groups in...

Regulatory analyses of air pollution policies require the use of concentration-response functions and underlying health data to estimate the mortality and morbidity effects, as well as the resulting benefits, associated with policy-related changes in fine particulate matter $$ ($$)]. Common practice by U.S. federal agencies involves using underlying health data and concentration-response functions that are not differentiated by racial/ethnic group.

We aim to explore the policy implications of using race/ethnicity-specific concentration-response functions and mortality data in comparison to standard approaches when estimating the impact of air pollution on non-White racial/ethnic subgroups.

Using new estimates from the epidemiological literature on race/ethnicity-specific concentration-response functions paired with race/ethnicity-specific mortality rates, we estimated the mortality impacts of air pollution from all sources from a uniform increase in concentrations and from the regulations imposed by the Mercury Air Toxics Standards.

Use of race/ethnicity-specific information increased $$ premature mortality estimates in older populations by 9% and among older Black Americans by 150% for all-source pollution exposure. Under a uniform degradation of air quality and race/ethnicity-specific information, older Black Americans were found to have approximately 3 times higher mortality relative to White Americans, which is obscured under a non-race/ethnicity-specific modeling approach. Standard approaches of using non-racial/ethnic specific information underestimate the benefits of the Mercury Air Toxics Standards to older Black Americans by almost 60% and overestimate the benefits to older White Americans by 14% relative to using a race/ethnicity-specific modeling approach.

Policy analyses incorporating race/ethnicity-specific concentration-response functions and mortality data relative to nondifferentiated inputs underestimate the overall magnitude of $$ mortality burden and the disparity in impacts on older Black American populations. Based on our results, we recommend that the best available race/ethnicity-specific inputs are used in regulatory assessments to understand and reduce environmental injustices. https://doi.org/10.1289/EHP9001.