Impact of Clean Air Initiatives on Ozone-Related Mortality

Overview

Ozone is a key protective layer of the atmosphere. However, when it reaches ground level, it can be detrimental to human health and has been associated with Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) related mortality. A recent study on trends in ozone pollution in China found that levels increased from 2000 to 2020, resulting in a higher mortality burden. However, such information has not been available in the United States (U.S.), which makes it difficult to effectively assess the impact of ozone pollution in the U.S.. The aim of our study was to analyze and model the trends in ozone pollution in the U.S. over the 2000-2020 period and then assess each year’s mortality burden attributable to ozone pollution. To do this, we calculated each year’s mean peak season (April to August) ozone concentration using NetCDF files (which model 3D data of molecules from air particles) for each day of the respective months and Numpy (an open-source library in Python which enables the analysis, calculations, and modeling of multidimensional arrays). We then calculated the mortality burden using an equation that was used in the previous Chinese study, which incorporated variables such as total population, relative risk of ozone exposure, and baseline COPD mortality rate. Our analysis showed that higher ozone concentrations correlated with higher ozone-attributed mortality burden, especially in the densely populated states like California and Florida with higher peak ozone levels. However, we found that due to clean air initiatives, there was a decreasing trend in both the ozone pollution (-0.337 ppb/year for the 21 years) as well as ozone-attributed mortality burden. To validate these results, we performed a comparison with the Global Burden of Disease (GBD) study, which corroborated our data. Our study highlighted the impact of clean air initiatives in the United States in reducing ozone-related mortality and provides information on states that still have high peak ozone levels. Our research would help in devising strategies and policies by different stakeholders to mitigate this problem.

Competition history

• AJAS 2026 Category not listed

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