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For decades, the United States made significant progress in improving air quality. Regulations, cleaner cars, and shifts away from coal-fired power generation reduced pollution from traditional sources. Now, new challenges such as wildfire smoke driven by climate change are emerging.
George Mason University researchers Lucas Henneman, associate professor in the Sid and Reva Dewberry Department of Civil, Environmental, and Infrastructure Engineering, and Jenna Krall, associate professor in the Department of Global and Community Health, are leading a study to better understand how changing sources of air pollution may affect respiratory health in the decades ahead.
Funded by the American Lung Association, the project will examine how the shift from fossil fuel pollution to wildfire smoke and other natural sources could alter health risks across the United States.
“Our past research has shown that air pollution from different sources has different health effects,” Henneman explained. “Breathing in a power plant plume leads to different responses than breathing in wildfire smoke.”
Current air quality regulations generally focus on total concentrations of fine particulate matter, known as PM2.5, regardless of where those particles come from. The research team aims to challenge that one-size-fits-all approach by investigating whether pollution from sources such as wildfires, traffic, power plants, and dust carries different levels of risk for respiratory illnesses.
Using advanced air quality models, machine learning techniques, and health data, the researchers will first analyze historical trends between 2011 and 2020. They will then project conditions in 2050, estimating how anticipated decreases in fossil fuel emissions and increases in wildfire-related pollution could affect respiratory emergency department visits and hospitalizations nationwide.
The project builds on work by Henneman’s PhD student Sumaiya Hussain, who has developed detailed maps showing how pollution from different sources affects communities across the country. The team's methods allow researchers to distinguish the impacts of individual pollution sources with unprecedented spatial detail.
“Emissions from traditional pollution sources have declined, while emissions from natural sources such as wildfires and plants have increased,” explained Hussain. “As the mix of sources contributing to PM2.5 continues to change, we want to understand what those changes could mean for health effects in the future”
Beyond advancing scientific understanding, the findings could help policymakers enact more efficient public health interventions and improve communication during major pollution events.
“Air pollution particles have varying characteristics such as chemical compositions, shapes, and sizes that influence how harmful they are. If these characteristics change, the resulting impacts on human health will change,” said Krall. “Because regulation of particulate air pollution is generally based on how much pollution is in the air, and not its characteristics, current limits may not fully protect health in the future."
By examining how the composition of air pollution is changing, the researchers hope to provide a clearer picture of future respiratory health risks and help communities prepare for a world where wildfire smoke plays an increasingly prominent role in the air we breathe.