{"id":3319,"date":"2020-04-19T15:44:46","date_gmt":"2020-04-19T15:44:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/world.350.org\/pittsburgh-2020\/?p=3319"},"modified":"2020-04-19T15:50:23","modified_gmt":"2020-04-19T15:50:23","slug":"new-harvard-study-links-covid-deaths-and-air-pollution-an-interview-with-study-author-dr-francesca-dominici","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/world.350.org\/pittsburgh\/new-harvard-study-links-covid-deaths-and-air-pollution-an-interview-with-study-author-dr-francesca-dominici\/","title":{"rendered":"New Harvard Study Links COVID Deaths and Air Pollution: An Interview with Study Author Dr. Francesca Dominici. + Pgh Post Gazette article on the study."},"content":{"rendered":"
Gretchen Goldman<\/a>,<\/span> Research Director, Center for Science and Democracy, Union of Concerned Scientists blog, April 8, 2020.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
A new study was made public yesterday that sheds light on the connection between COVID-19 health impacts and air pollution<\/a>. I sat down (virtually of course<\/a>) with Dr. Francesca Dominici, author and Director of the Data Science Initiative at Harvard\u2019s T.H. Chan School of Public Health, to learn more about the study\u2019s findings<\/a>, which focused on fine particulate matter<\/a> (PM2.5<\/sub>) and what researchers plan to do next to further our understanding of air pollution\u2019s impact on coronavirus health outcomes.<\/div>\n
\n

Dr. Gretchen Goldman: These are groundbreaking new findings on the relationship between PM2.5<\/sub> air pollution and COVID-19. What are the key findings?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Dr. Francesca Dominici: To our knowledge, this is the first study that quantifies on a national scale the potential increase in COVID mortality rate that is associated with long-term exposure to air pollution. We use data from counties that account for 90% of the COVID-19 deaths in the US as of April 4, 2020.<\/p>\n

The most important result is that we found that people living in counties in the US that have experienced a higher level of air pollution over the past 15-17 years have a substantially higher COVID-19 mortality rate. To quantify, we found that a one unit increase in long-term average exposure to fine particulate matter is associated with a 15% increase in COVID-19 mortality rate on average in the analysis. This increase accounts for adjustments for any systematic differences between county level characteristics [such as population density or smoking rates].<\/p>\n

Full Article HERE<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Pittsburgh Post Gazette Article, Don Hopey, April 19, 2020:<\/h4>\n

Study finds link between air pollution and COVID-19 fatalities<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

Long-term exposure to higher concentrations of airborne particle pollution significantly increases the death rate for those infected with the novel coronavirus known as COVID-19, according to a new Harvard University study.<\/p>\n

The study, the first to assess the relationship between exposure to fine particles, known as PM2.5, and COVID-19 mortality, also is critical of the Trump administration\u2019s plans to relax enforcement of pollution standards during the ongoing pandemic.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Gretchen Goldman, Research Director, Center for Science and Democracy, Union of Concerned Scientists blog, April 8, 2020. A new study…<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":410,"featured_media":3320,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[18,13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3319","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-damage-report","category-pa_pgh_news"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/world.350.org\/pittsburgh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3319","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/world.350.org\/pittsburgh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/world.350.org\/pittsburgh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/world.350.org\/pittsburgh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/410"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/world.350.org\/pittsburgh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3319"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/world.350.org\/pittsburgh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3319\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/world.350.org\/pittsburgh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3320"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/world.350.org\/pittsburgh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3319"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/world.350.org\/pittsburgh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3319"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/world.350.org\/pittsburgh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3319"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}