Particulate Matter

This edition of Update reports on HEI's presentation of GBD MAPS results at a major Chinese air pollution meeting; HEI's Annual Conference in Denver in May; two new HEI research reports on the effects of air pollution on birth and pregnancy outcomes; a meeting of the National Association of Clean Air Agencies at which HEI shared research results with diverse experts and regulators; and HEI's participation at a EPA Clean Air Act Advisory Committee meeting in June.

HEI Research Report 187 was funded as part of HEI’s Accountability research program, aimed at understanding whether actions to improve air quality have resulted in improved health outcomes. Corwin M. Zigler and his colleagues used existing and newly developed statistical methods to assess whether an intervention was causally related to changes in pollutant levels or health outcomes, and applied their methods in two well-developed case studies: effects of air quality interventions to reduce PM₁₀ concentrations in nonattainment areas and the impact of installation of scrubber technologies on emissions from coal-fired power plants.