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. 2023 Dec 15;239(Pt 2):117246.
doi: 10.1016/j.envres.2023.117246. Epub 2023 Oct 6.

Environmental exposure disparities in ultrafine particles and PM2.5 by urbanicity and socio-demographics in New York state, 2013-2020

Arshad Arjunan Nair  1 , Shao Lin  2 , Gan Luo  3 , Ian Ryan  4 , Quan Qi  5 , Xinlei Deng  4 , Fangqun Yu  6
Affiliations

Environmental exposure disparities in ultrafine particles and PM2.5 by urbanicity and socio-demographics in New York state, 2013-2020

Arshad Arjunan Nair et al. Environ Res. .

Abstract

Background: The spatiotemporal and demographic disparities in exposure to ultrafine particles (UFP; number concentrations of particulate matter (PM) with diameter ≤0.1 μm), a key subcomponent of fine aerosols (PM2.5; mass concentrations of PM ≤ 2.5 μm), have not been well studied.

Objective: To quantify and compare the aerosol pollutant exposure disparities for UFP and PM2.5 by socio-demographic factors in New York State (NYS).

Methods: Ambient atmospheric UFP and PM2.5 were quantified using a global three-dimensional model of chemical transport with state-of-the-science aerosol microphysical processes validated extensively with observations. We matched these to U.S. census demographic data for varied spatial scales (state, county, county subdivision) and derived population-weighted aerosol exposure estimates. Aerosol exposure disparities for each demographic and socioeconomic (SES) indicator, with a focus on race-ethnicity and income, were quantified for the period 2013-2020.

Results: The average NYS resident was exposed to 4451 #·cm-3 UFP and 7.87 μg·m-3 PM2.5 in 2013-2020, but minority race-ethnicity groups were invariably exposed to greater daily aerosol pollution (UFP: +75.0% & PM2.5: +16.2%). UFP has increased since 2017 and is temporally and seasonally out-of-phase with PM2.5. Race-ethnicity exposure disparities for PM2.5 have declined over time; by -6% from 2013 to 2017 and plateaued thereafter despite its decreasing concentrations. In contrast, these disparities have increased (+12.5-13.5%) for UFP. The aerosol pollution exposure disparities were the highest for low-income minorities and were more amplified for UFP than PM2.5. DISCUSSION: We identified large disparities in aerosol pollution exposure by urbanization level and socio-demographics in NYS residents. Jurisdictions with higher proportions of race-ethnicity minorities, low-income residents, and greater urbanization were disproportionately exposed to higher concentrations of UFP and PM2.5 than other NYS residents. These race-ethnicity exposure disparities were much larger, more disproportionate, and unabating over time for UFP compared to PM2.5 across various income strata and levels of urbanicity.

Keywords: Aerosols; Air quality; Environmental justice; Fine particulate matter; Public health inequalities; Ultrafine particles.

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Conflict of interest statement

Declaration of competing interest The authors declare the following financial interests/personal relationships which may be considered as potential competing interests: Fangqun Yu reports financial support was provided by New York State Energy Research Development Authority. Shao Lin reports financial support was provided by National Institutes of Health.

Figures

Fig. 1.
Fig. 1.
Characteristics of ultrafine particle number concentrations (UFP) and PM2.5 over New York State (NYS) from 2013 to 2020. (Top) Spatial distributions of period averaged values for (a) UFP and (b) PM2.5. Insets for New York Metropolitan Areas (NYMA). (Center) Time series (moving average) for UFP (orange) and PM2.5 (blue) showing (c) yearly and (d) monthly variations of aerosol concentrations over NYS. (Bottom) Extent of daily UFP–PM2.5 correlation: (e) binned scatter plot and (f) spatial Kendall rank correlation coefficient (τ) at the county subdivision level.
Fig. 2.
Fig. 2.
Yearly moving average for the temporal evolution of race-ethnicity disparities in aerosol pollutant exposure in (top) absolute terms and (bottom) relative terms. Dashed curve indicates the generalized additive model (GAM) fits on the daily data and the associated shading in grey the 95% C.I. for the fits. Disparities are presented for the aggregated race-ethnicity minority group compared to non-Hispanic White subgroup. Socio-demographic information is from the American Community Survey 2015–2019 5-year data. Shown on the left (orange) are these for UFP and on the right (blue) for PM2.5. UFP exposure disparities are larger and unabating as compared to those for PM2.5.
Fig. 3.
Fig. 3.
Yearly moving average for (a) UFP and (b) PM2.5 population-weighted exposure at the county subdivision level in NYS during 2013–2020. Shown for each race-ethnicity group (color legend) with facets corresponding to each NCHS urbanization level (i–vi).
Fig. 4.
Fig. 4.
For (a) UFP and (b) PM2.5 population-weighted exposure at the county subdivision level in NYS during 2013–2020, the representation bias for each race-ethnicity group (color legend) in the worst 10% exposure jurisdictions corresponding to each NCHS urbanization level (i–vi). Values for Native and Pacific groups are omitted due to small sample sizes resulting in high variability.
Fig. 5.
Fig. 5.
The relative excess exposure (%) to aerosol pollution for race-ethnicity groups compared to the non-Hispanic White subgroup by (a) urbanicity and (b) economic status at the county subdivision level in New York State. Circles indicate a statistically significant difference between distributions (each vs. non-Hispanic White) and crosses otherwise.
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