Response:

The article that I choose to read about was on the topic of air pollution and its effects on a human’s lifespan after long term exposure. They claim that the pollution and its negative effects can cause the human body to actually shut down over time if exposed to too much pollution. This testing was done mostly on older age Americans, aged 65 and older. They carried through with their test, and they were able to achieve the following results of data collection.

There were many takeaways that came from the research but the one major thing to take away from this whole piece is that long term exposure to pollution does in fact kill you prematurely. The study was conducted on about 60 million Americans, again, mostly aged 65 and older (97% of the 60 million to be exact). The results showed that long term exposure to airborne fine particulate matter (PM2.5) and ozone then increase persons’ chance of having a premature death. And this is even at levels lower than what the EPA recommends as safe. The research also showed that particular groups of people were more affected than others. The research found that men, blacks, and low-income populations had a higher risk than the national average. In the African-American group in particular, there results actually showed that they have a three times more likely mortality rate when compared to the national average.

Some part of the research was also dedicated to how this problem could be fixed. And the results showed that if the PM2.5 levels were lowered by just 1 microgram per cubic meter (ug/m3) across the nation, then about 12,000 lives could be saved every year. And if the ozone level was lowered by just 1 parts per billion (ppb) nationwide, then about 1,900 lives could be saved each year. These are numbers that show just a little change can make a big difference.

They conducted their experiment by reviewing the Medicare claims of about 60 million Americans over a 7-year period. And they estimated the air pollution levels according to 1 kilometer grids that they placed across the entire nation. And since this spanned the entire country the results represented places in urban, suburban, and rural places.

After reading this article I found it very interesting and also very informative due to the amount of work they conducted and presented. This research project team showed everything that they did and then some, even going into depth at sometimes about how they conducted the research, allowing the reader to understand what was going on. This showed us not only how the statistics and results were being used, but also that it wasn’t being used in a biased way. It is unbiased due to the fact that the results they give have not been altered in any way and they give no slanted views on what the numbers mean. They just provide the numbers and put into English what they are saying, and that is that pollution has now been proven to have negative effects on people’s lifespans.

 

Citation:

Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. “Study of US seniors strengthens link between air pollution and premature death.” ScienceDaily, 28 June 2017, www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/06/170628183211.htm. Accessed 14 Sept. 2017.