Air alert: Pollution lurks as a culprit in mortality rates
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In one of the world's great industrial regions, where products are still made and coal-fired power plants generate most of the electricity, thousands more people die from heart disease, respiratory disease and lung cancer than the nation's mortality rates would predict.
Those who live in various towns, some along rivers and others on hilltops, notice clusters of their neighbors fighting cancers and respiratory ailments, while government and epidemiologists are called upon to examine whether environmental factors are the cause.
Black soot falls from the sky, routinely coating cars and backyard furniture, and children who play outdoors have been hit by a "black rain" of emissions from the nearby power plant.
No, this is not China or India. Nor is it a Third World country galloping headlong into industrialization without heed to the consequences of pollution and the need to safeguard public health. This is the region around Pittsburgh, 40 years after the federal Clean Air Act -- a place famed for its post-World War II air and water cleanups and its post-steel transformation to blue skies.
What you don't see or smell, though, can kill you.
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That's one message to take from "Mapping Mortality," the landmark, eight-day series that concludes today in the Post-Gazette. Staff writers Don Hopey and David Templeton spent a year investigating air pollution and its impact on a 14-county region. They examined documents, interviewed more than 150 people and mapped the mortality rates for heart and lung disease and lung cancer for the 746 municipalities in those counties. Not only the articles, but also interactive maps showing community disease rates, power plant locations and other information can be accessed on the web at post-gazette.com.
The series found higher disease rates around many of the region's 16 coal-fired power plants and 150 other companies regarded by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency as major stationary sources of pollution. "Mapping Mortality" also reported that high death rates showed up irregularly in the areas downwind of the power plants and industrial operations.
The Post-Gazette's review and analysis of state health department data showed that 14,636 more people died from heart disease, respiratory disease and lung cancer in the 14 counties in 2000-2008 than national mortality rates would predict. While other factors including smoking, obesity, occupational exposures and genetic predisposition can be at work, scientific studies have documented links between the diseases and air pollution exposure. Among the types of emissions that can play a role are those from coal-burning utilities and plants, vehicles and chemical-based industries.
First Published December 19, 2010 12:00 am
