Quantifying Disparities in Air Pollution Exposures across the United States Using Home and Work Addresses

Area of Science:

• Environmental Health
• Epidemiology
• Occupational Health

Background:

• Human mobility significantly influences ambient air pollution exposure and associated health risks.
• Previous research predominantly relied on residential location, potentially underestimating true exposures.
• Understanding exposure disparities requires integrating diverse human mobility patterns.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate how incorporating both workplace and residential locations impacts the assessment of air pollution exposure disparities.
• To quantify the underestimation of disparities when only residential location is considered.
• To identify subpopulations with the highest exposure misclassification.

Main Methods:

• Utilized a large-scale database of US workers (128-144 million) and ambient particulate matter (PM2.5) data (2011-2018).
• Compared air pollution exposures based on residential location versus a combined home-and-workplace exposure model.
• Analyzed disparities across various demographic and socioeconomic factors.

Main Results:

• Workplace exposures were generally higher than residential exposures.
• Nonwhite and less educated workers experienced increased PM2.5 exposures compared to the national average.
• Disparities in workplace exposure were more pronounced for racial/ethnic groups and job types than for income, education, age, or sex.
• Excluding workplace exposures led to systematic underestimation of disparities.

Conclusions:

• Incorporating workplace location is crucial for accurately assessing air pollution exposure disparities.
• Failure to account for workplace exposures can mask significant health risks for vulnerable subpopulations.
• Exposure misclassification was highest among urban, younger populations, impacting PM2.5 and health impact associations.