Deaths from fossil fuel burning air pollution

[Bernard L Cohen <blc+@pitt.edu>]

	There was some discussion recently on estimates of number of
deaths per year in U.S. from air pollution due to fossil fuels. It was
introduced here as a report from a low credibility "Environmental Group"
and there were several comments here that the tens of thousands of deaths
they estimated were incredible. 
	I decided to trace down the source and it has taken a few weeks to
do it, but I have finally got it. The source was an EPA Report released in
November 1999, EPA-410-R-99-01 on Benefits and costs of the Clean Air Act.
It is loaded with references, but when all is said and done, the principal
reference is to a study by a large Harvard Group published by C.A. Pope
and 6 coauthors, Am J Respir Crit Care Med 151:669-674;1995. It was a
prospective study linking air pollution data on sulfate particles and fine
particulates for 151 Metropolitan areas with individual risk factors for
552,000 adults who resided in those areas, 11,000 of whom died during the
follow-up period. They adjusted for smoking, education, and and several
other factors. The ratio of mortality risk (with 95% confidence intervals)
for the most polluted to the least polluted areas were:
	Based on sulfates, all causes 1.15 (1.09-1.22)
			   lung CA 1.36 (1.11-1.66) 
			   cardiopulminary 1.26 (1.16-1.37)

	Based on fine particulates, all causes 1.17 (1.09-1.26)
				    lung CA 1.03 (0.80-1.33)
				    cardiopulmonary 1.31 (1.17-1.46

	Their paper also reviews other studies (Lave & Seskin, Lipfert 
et al, Ozkaynak et al, Dockery et al),and it concludes that the
results are similar.
	If 8% of deaths in areas of *average* pollution are due to air
pollution, and half of all people live in Metropolitan areas (my guess,
but I can check on this), that means that 4% of all U.S. deaths, 80,000
per year, are due to air pollution. This agrees with other estimates, and
I believe it should be taken seriously. I have always used such estimates,
compared with less than 10 deaths per year from nuclear power (including
accidents and buried waste treated probabilistically) in my attempts to
justify nuclear power to the public. It seems to me that this is an
overwhelming argument -- or is there something wrong with me? In this, I
conservatively use 10,000 deaths per year from coal burning power plants.	


Bernard L. Cohen
Physics Dept.
University of Pittsburgh
Pittsburgh, PA 15260
Tel: (412)624-9245
Fax: (412)624-9163
e-mail: blc+@pitt.edu


************************************************************************
The RADSAFE Frequently Asked Questions list, archives and subscription
information can be accessed at http://www.ehs.uiuc.edu/~rad/radsafe.html