A recent study published by researchers at Boston College’s Global Observatory on Planetary Health revealed that around 2,780 people die in Massachusetts each year due to air pollution.
“This was a study that was designed to be scientifically robust, but at the same time, very deliberately intended to present information that would trigger people to take action,” said Philip Landrigan, director of BC’s Global Observatory on Planetary Health and global public health program.
The level of pollution in the air—referred to as fine particulate PM2.5 pollution—is responsible for nine million deaths around the world each year, according to Landrigan. Air pollution is the fifth largest environmental cause of disease and premature death in the world today, impacting different communities disproportionately.
“Unquestionably, the heaviest burden of disease and death caused by air pollution occurs in low income, heavily minority communities in Massachusetts—that’s inescapable,” Landrigan said. “However, I hasten to add that no town or city anywhere in Massachusetts is spared.”
According to the study, air pollution caused 1,677 deaths in 2019 by cardiovascular disease, 2,185 by lung cancer, 200 by stroke, and 343 by chronic respiratory disease.
Air pollution in Massachusetts was also responsible for 308 low weight births, 15,386 pediatric asthma cases, and an estimated loss of nearly two million performance IQ points in children, according to the data.
Landrigan said that his team was influenced by the saying “all politics are local”—which comes from former Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives Tip O’Neill, BC ’36—to take steps toward promoting clean air in Massachusetts by informing people about the realities of air pollution.
“One of his favorite sayings was that ‘all politics are local,’ so we said ‘let’s look at air pollution locally’ and we refined the idea, decided that we would do it not just across Massachusetts, but actually break it down and look at the impact that air pollution has in every single city—in towns large and small,” he said.
According to the research, the highest sources of air pollution in Massachusetts are cars, trucks, buses, planes, trains, and ships—making up 655,000 tons of fine particulate pollutants per year. Power plants, other industrial facilities, and residential heating and cooking emit another 283,000 tons.
In total, the research found that there are 938,000 tons of air pollution in Massachusetts. More than 95 percent of air pollution in Massachusetts results from the combustion of fossil fuels, according to the study.
Landrigan said some of his concerns about air pollution arise from the fact that federally set pollutant standards are not strict enough. Though the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) allows 12 micrograms of fine particulate pollution per cubic meter of air, the World Health Organization’s recommended guideline is five micrograms, according to Landrigan.
While Massachusetts had a level of 6.3 micrograms of PM2.5 pollution in 2019—making it almost 50 percent below EPA standards for acceptable air pollution levels—Landrigan said he still considers those conditions unacceptable.
“Despite the fact that we’re 50 percent below the EPA standard, we’re seeing 2,780 deaths [in 2019],” Landrigan said. “What that tells me is that the standard is not strict enough. It needs to be ratcheted down, and regulatory agencies know how to do this.”
On its website, the observatory developed an interactive map application that allows people to discover the impacts of air pollution on each of Massachusetts’ cities and towns.
“When people look at these maps and look at the tables in the report, they can look up their own town, and they all of a sudden see that air pollution is right where they live, it’s not in some other state,” Landrigan said. “I think that gets people’s attention and that was our whole intention of laying the data out town by town, to show people that this is a clear and present danger, right here and now in Massachusetts.”
Landrigan said that while the data should be a wake-up call, he has hope in the future of renewable energy and sustainability.
“If people give up and say it’s impossible, it’ll never happen,” Landrigan said. “We have to be optimistic, we have to put our science to work, translate our science into policy, and just keep the momentum going.”
