Air pollution controls linked to lower death rates in North Carolina

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2014-06/dumc-apc061614.php

PUBLIC RELEASE DATE: 23-Jun-2014
Contact: Debbe Geiger
Duke University Medical Center
Air pollution controls linked to lower death rates in North Carolina

DURHAM, N.C. -- National and state air pollution controls that went into effect in the early 1990s coincide with decreasing death rates from emphysema, asthma and pneumonia among people in North Carolina, according to a study led by Duke University researchers.

Using mortality trends from state public health data, along with monthly measurements from air-monitoring stations across North Carolina from 1993-2010, the researchers were able to draw a close association between improved air quality and declining death rates from respiratory illnesses.

"This research tends to show that environmental policies work, if the goal of those policies is not only to improve the environment, but also to improve health," said H. Kim Lyerly, M.D., professor of surgery, associate professor of pathology and assistant professor of immunology at Duke. Lyerly is senior author of the study published online June 23, 2014, in the International Journal of COPD.

"While a few studies have analyzed the associations of both air quality and health over a long period, they were typically limited to analyses of a specific air pollutant or a couple of pollutants," Lyerly said. "In contrast, we leveraged access to multiple disparate databases containing either environmental or health data, and we were able to study longitudinally a number of air contaminants, including both particulate matter and noxious gases over almost two decades."

The research team included scientists from Duke University School of Medicine, the Center for Population Health and Aging at Duke University, the Nicholas School of the Environment at Duke and the N.C. Department of Environment and Natural Resources.

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