IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/spr/jenvss/v15y2025i2d10.1007_s13412-024-00933-1.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Demographic disparities in United States Clean Air Act PM2.5 attainment counties: assessing population living in nonattainment conditions

Author

Listed:
  • Finn Dobkin

    (George Washington University)

  • Gaige Kerr

    (George Washington University)

Abstract

United States’ (US) declines in PM2.5 concentrations attributed to the US Clean Air Act have overshadowed the geographic disparities in PM2.5 exposure. Using PM2.5 estimates formed by fusing a chemical transport model with satellite observations and calibrated to surface-level concentrations, we estimate census tract-level PM2.5 concentrations in Clean Air Act compliant regions, administratively referred to as attainment counties. We then (a) estimate the total population living in census tracts that exceed the Clean Air Act attainment PM2.5 concentrations and (b) identify the sociodemographic characteristics of each census tract by PM2.5 concentration. We find that in 2020, there were an estimated 6.73 million individuals living in Clean Air Act PM2.5 attainment counties located in census tracts that exceed Clean Air Act PM2.5 attainment concentrations. Our findings also indicate that these census tracts with elevated PM2.5 concentrations are disproportionately populated by Hispanic and foreign-born individuals.

Suggested Citation

  • Finn Dobkin & Gaige Kerr, 2025. "Demographic disparities in United States Clean Air Act PM2.5 attainment counties: assessing population living in nonattainment conditions," Journal of Environmental Studies and Sciences, Springer;Association of Environmental Studies and Sciences, vol. 15(2), pages 298-309, June.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:jenvss:v:15:y:2025:i:2:d:10.1007_s13412-024-00933-1
    DOI: 10.1007/s13412-024-00933-1
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s13412-024-00933-1
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s13412-024-00933-1?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Abdulrahman Jbaily & Xiaodan Zhou & Jie Liu & Ting-Hwan Lee & Leila Kamareddine & Stéphane Verguet & Francesca Dominici, 2022. "Air pollution exposure disparities across US population and income groups," Nature, Nature, vol. 601(7892), pages 228-233, January.
    2. Corbett Grainger & Andrew Schreiber, 2019. "Discrimination in Ambient Air Pollution Monitoring?," AEA Papers and Proceedings, American Economic Association, vol. 109, pages 277-282, May.
    3. Brochu, P.J. & Yanosky, J.D. & Paciorek, C.J. & Schwartz, J. & Chen, J.T. & Herrick, R.F. & Suh, H.H., 2011. "Particulate air pollution and socioeconomic position in rural and urban areas of the Northeastern United States," American Journal of Public Health, American Public Health Association, vol. 101(SUPPL. 1), pages 224-230.
    4. Eric Yongchen Zou, 2021. "Unwatched Pollution: The Effect of Intermittent Monitoring on Air Quality," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 111(7), pages 2101-2126, July.
    5. Ankit Rastogi & Katherine Curtis, 2020. "Beyond the City: Exploring the Suburban and Rural Landscapes of Racial Residential Integration Across the United States," Population Research and Policy Review, Springer;Southern Demographic Association (SDA), vol. 39(5), pages 861-888, October.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Balietti, Anca & Zeising, Tom, 2024. "Racial Disparities in Environmental Auditing," Working Papers 0745, University of Heidelberg, Department of Economics.
    2. Coury, Michael & Falconer, Liam & La Nauze, Andrea, 2024. "Wildfire smoke and private provision of public air-quality monitoring," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 127(C).
    3. Kastoryano, Stephen & Vollaard, Ben, 2022. "Nautical Patrol and Illegal Fishing Practices," Other publications TiSEM c02852eb-237c-4c6b-af7c-9, Tilburg University, School of Economics and Management.
    4. Robert Metcalfe & Sefi Roth, 2025. "Making the Invisible Visible: The Impact of Revealing Indoor Air Pollution on Behavior and Welfare," Framed Field Experiments 00819, The Field Experiments Website.
    5. Guo, Liwen & Cheng, Zhiming & Tani, Massimiliano & Cook, Sarah, 2024. "Air pollution and education investment," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 132(C).
    6. Lucas Cain & Danae Hernandez-Cortes & Christopher Timmins & Paige Weber, 2023. "Recent Findings and Methodologies in Economics Research in Environmental Justice," CESifo Working Paper Series 10283, CESifo.
    7. Felipe J. Quezada & Nathan W. Chan, 2023. "A Framework for Estimating the Impact of Monitoring and Enforcement on (Unobserved) Illicit Extraction," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 84(2), pages 627-647, February.
    8. Kastoryano, Stephen & Vollaard, Ben, 2023. "Unseen annihilation: Illegal fishing practices and nautical patrol," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 122(C).
    9. Xie, Tingting & Yuan, Ye, 2023. "Go with the wind: Spatial impacts of environmental regulations on economic activities in China," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 164(C).
    10. Gaige Hunter Kerr & Michelle Meyer & Daniel L. Goldberg & Joshua Miller & Susan C. Anenberg, 2024. "Air pollution impacts from warehousing in the United States uncovered with satellite data," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 15(1), pages 1-9, December.
    11. Teevrat Garg & Maulik Jagnani & Hemant K. Pullabhotla, 2022. "Structural transformation and environmental externalities," Papers 2212.02664, arXiv.org.
    12. Patrick Opiyo Owili & Wei-Hung Lien & Miriam Adoyo Muga & Tang-Huang Lin, 2017. "The Associations between Types of Ambient PM 2.5 and Under-Five and Maternal Mortality in Africa," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 14(4), pages 1-20, March.
    13. Li, Zheng, 2025. "Polluting my downwind neighbor: Evidence of interjurisdictional free riding from air polluter locations in China," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 130(C).
    14. Li, Pei & Liu, Kaihao & Lu, Yi & Peng, Lu, 2025. "Organizing regulatory structure and local air quality: Evidence from the environmental vertical management reform in China," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 53(1), pages 139-164.
    15. Diao, Liang & Song, Huiqian, 2024. "Does improved tenure security reduce fires? Evidence from the Greece land registry," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 127(C).
    16. Lutz Sager & Gregor Singer, 2025. "Clean Identification? The Effects of the Clean Air Act on Air Pollution, Exposure Disparities, and House Prices," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 17(1), pages 1-36, February.
    17. Browne, Oliver R. & Gazze, Ludovica & Greenstone, Michael & Olga Rostapshova, 2022. "Man vs. Machine : Technological Promise and Political Limits of Automated Regulation Enforcement," The Warwick Economics Research Paper Series (TWERPS) 1440, University of Warwick, Department of Economics.
    18. Séverine Deguen & Claire Petit & Angélique Delbarre & Wahida Kihal & Cindy Padilla & Tarik Benmarhnia & Annabelle Lapostolle & Pierre Chauvin & Denis Zmirou-Navier, 2015. "Neighbourhood Characteristics and Long-Term Air Pollution Levels Modify the Association between the Short-Term Nitrogen Dioxide Concentrations and All-Cause Mortality in Paris," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 10(7), pages 1-14, July.
    19. Kaicheng Zhang & Kai Liu & Caihong Huang, 2024. "Cooperative Innovation Under the “Belt and Road Initiative” for Reducing Carbon Emissions: An Estimation Based on the Spatial Difference-in-Differences Model," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 16(23), pages 1-32, November.
    20. Rachel Sparkman & Kathryn Harker Tillman, 2024. "Household Income by Nativity Status and Race/Ethnicity Across Metropolitan and Regional Contexts," Population Research and Policy Review, Springer;Southern Demographic Association (SDA), vol. 43(1), pages 1-31, February.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:spr:jenvss:v:15:y:2025:i:2:d:10.1007_s13412-024-00933-1. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.