The Health Effects of Hazy Air
August 2, 2021
By Brock Smith
Thanks to wildfires popping up all over the Northwest US (and Canada), Montanans have
been dealing with a recent spate of smoky air. Here in Bozeman, we had days in which
the peak Air Quality Index (AQI) exceeded 100 (signifying “unhealthy for sensitive
groups”) for roughly a week straight, an unusually bad stretch for the area. Air quality
fluctuates widely from year to year and even week to week, but as wildfire frequency
is likely to continue to increase due to climate change, we can expect occasional
stretches of bad air to become more commonplace as well.
Anumber of papers have documented the effects of poor air quality on cognitive function.
Past studies have shown that air pollution negatively impacts children’s test scores,
but less work has been done for adults, who don’t typically take standardized tests.
But a couple of recent papers have overcome this limitation in clever ways. A 2018
study (link) analyzes how the performance of Major League Baseball umpires is affected by air
quality. MLB umpires work in a unique setting, where every decision they make regarding
balls and strikes can be objectively evaluated with technology that determines whether
the ball passed through the strike zone. Umpiring accurately over the course of a
game takes a high level of concentration and skill, so if air pollution does impact
cognitive ability in real time it should be detectable in umpire performance. The
paper does find that higher pollution results in more incorrect calls, though the
effect is arguably small. The paper states that “a 3% reduction in productive output
is associated with a change in CO concentrations equivalent to moving from the 25th
to the 95th percentile of the CO distribution in many of the largest US cities.”
Another study (link) uses a similar methodology to evaluate speech patterns from politicians. It uses
standardized textual analysis that evaluates the quality and complexity of speech
from nearly 120,000 speeches made in the Canadian House of Commons from 2006-2011.
The authors find that exposure to elevated levels of PM2.5 (particulate matter that
is 2.5 micrometers in diameter or smaller) causes an average 2.3% reduction in speech
quality—again a modest but meaningful effect.
So it might be good to note that on smoky days you might be a touch less sharp than
usual, but there are more serious long-term cognitive concerns as well. A working paper finds that higher average PM2.5 concentrations is associated with increased probability
of a dementia diagnosis. Fortunately for Montanans, even with the wildfire smoke our
average air quality is much better than for the vast majority of Americans who live
in areas with higher population density, so these kinds of cumulative long-run health
effects will be less severe.
But for long-term health effects in general, the more we study air pollution, the worse it gets.