Posthuman Blues

Air pollution: Worse than you thought

Among participants, for each increase of 10 micrograms per cubic meter (µg/m3) of fine particles in the neighborhood's air, the risk of death from any cause rose by 11 to 17 percent, according to Michael Jerrett, Ph.D., associate professor of preventive medicine at the Keck School of Medicine of the University of Southern California and the paper's lead author. Fine particle levels can differ by about 20 µg/m3 from the cleanest parts of Los Angeles to the most polluted.

"By looking at the effects of pollution within communities, not only did we observe pollution's influence on overall mortality, but we saw specific links between particulate matter and death from ischemic heart disease, such as heart attack, as well as lung cancers," Jerrett says. Ischemic heart disease mortality risks rose by 25 to 39 percent for the 10 µg/m3increase in air pollution.