Older Americans at Risk – Low Levels of Particulate Matter Can Be Deadly

Low Levels of Particulate Matter Can Be Deadly to Older Americans, According to Large 2022 Study by Health Effects Institute

Air pollution is one of the leading causes of premature death across the globe, with an estimated seven million premature deaths attributed to indoor and outdoor air pollution by the World Health Organization (WHO). 

While we tend to think of air pollution fatalities as a far-away problem in developing nations that don’t affect Americans, a new study by the Health Effects Institute (a group funded by the EPA and various players in the fossil fuel industry) strongly indicates otherwise. 

Related Post: Air Pollution and COVID-19 — Study Shows Exposure to Air Pollution Increases Risk of Getting Sick with COVID-19  

2022 PM2.5 Study Shows Premature Deaths Related to Air Pollution in the USA

The study, led by Dr. Francesca Dominici of the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, examined public health data from 68.5 million Medicare recipients between 2006 and 2016. 

The study had four broad goals: 

1. Estimate long-term exposures to concentrations of PM2.5, ozone, and nitrogen dioxide across the contiguous United States between 2000 and 2016.
2. Develop a framework for establishing causal non-linear relationships between air pollution exposure and adverse health effects that accounts for measured and non-measured confounding factors and multiple exposures. 
3. Apply these methods alongside traditional regression models to estimate mortality by year and zip code associated with air pollutants. 
4. Develop approaches for data sharing, record linkage, and statistical software to encourage transparency and replicability of the study.

The study found that the average concentration of PM2.5 that participants were exposed to was 9.8μg/m3, but the range was from 2.8 to  17.2μg/m3. Researchers observed a strong linear correlation between exposure level and health complications below the U.S. limit of 12μg/m3, but this relationship became less distinct at higher exposure levels. 

“The finding of increased risk of all-cause mortality in the low exposure subcohort across the various analytical approaches increases the confidence that mortality is associated with long-term concentrations of PM2.5 below the current U.S. standard,” the researchers concluded. The team estimates more than 140,000 deaths that occurred between 2006 and 2016 could have been prevented if the U.S. standard for PM2.5 had been as low as the WHO’s recommended guidelines of 10μg/m3. 

Indoor Air Filtration — a Workable Solution for Pollution-Related Health Effects

Exposure to levels of PM2.5 well below the U.S. limit of 12μg/m3  was linked to premature mortality. The U.S. limit is already higher than the WHO’s suggested limit of 10μg/m3. Many medical professionals and public health advocates suggest tightened restrictions to prevent deaths and health complications resulting from exposure to particulate matter. Others fear the  restrictions will lead to lessened freedom for individuals and stunted technological innovation and economic growth. 

Related Post: Camfil & the Healthy Indoors Alliance Initiative

Either way, reducing emissions of particulate matter at the source is a long journey requiring action from governments and manufacturers alike. But there are actions that can be taken by individuals, businesses, and other establishments in the meantime to protect our lungs and help prevent pollution-related deaths. 

In the United States, we spend at least 90% of our time indoors, according to the EPA. Indoor air can be as much as fifty times more polluted than outdoor air due to lack of ventilation and indoor sources of air pollution. The reality is for  most of us, the majority of our exposure to air pollution occurs inside. 

One way to address indoor air pollution is by introducing and upgrading air filtration and ventilation systems in residential and commercial buildings. Camfil’s City M air purifier uses medical-grade Absolute® HEPA filters to target particulate matter and activated carbon filters to target gaseous pollutants.  The certified HEPA filters within the City M are  99.995% efficient  at capturing particulate matter at the most penetrating particle size (MPPS).

Read more about air filtration solutions that combat particulate matter.

About Camfil Clean Air Solutions

For more than half a century, Camfil has been helping people breathe cleaner air. As a leading manufacturer of premium clean air solutions, we provide commercial and industrial systems for air filtration and air pollution control that improve worker and equipment productivity, minimize energy use, and benefit human health and the environment. We firmly believe that the best solutions for our customers are the best solutions for our planet, too. That’s why every step of the way – from design to delivery and across the product life cycle – we consider the impact of what we do on people and on the world around us. Through a fresh approach to problem-solving, innovative design, precise process control, and a strong customer focus we aim to conserve more, use less and find better ways – so we can all breathe easier.

The Camfil Group is headquartered in Stockholm, Sweden, and has 31​ manufacturing sites, six R&D centers, local sales offices in 35+ countries, and about 5,200 employees and growing. We proudly serve and support customers in a wide variety of industries and in communities across the world. To discover how Camfil USA can help you to protect people, processes and the environment, visit us at www.camfil.us/ 

 

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Media Contact: 

Lynne Laake 

Camfil USA Air Filters 

T: 888.599.6620 

E: Lynne.Laake@camfil.com

F: Friend Camfil USA on Facebook

T: Follow Camfil USA on Twitter 

Y: Watch Camfil Videos on YouTube

L: Follow our LinkedIn Page

 

Sources:

https://www.healtheffects.org/publication/assessing-adverse-health-effects-long-term-exposure-low-levels-ambient-air-pollution-0

https://www.epa.gov/report-environment/indoor-air-quality

 

The post Older Americans at Risk – Low Levels of Particulate Matter Can Be Deadly appeared first on Air Filters for Clean Air.

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Data Center Defense: Reduce Airborne Contaminants to Improve Indoor Air Quality

Cyber-attack prevention is obviously a huge part of maintaining data center security. But online ambushes aren’t the only dangers data center operators must worry about. Physical threats like heat, humidity and airborne contaminants cause hardware to malfunction and lead to costly downtime. 

Depending on the size of the enterprise, data centers can be small enough to fit in a server room, while others fill a floor of a building. The largest data centers are groups of buildings that occupy millions of square feet. 

As of January 2022, there were 2,751 large data centers in the United States, and Loudoun County, Virginia, houses the world’s largest concentration of facilities, with more than 25 million square feet currently in operation and millions more in development. That’s followed by 484 data centers located in Germany, 458 in the UK, 447 in China and 324 in Canada.

Results from a recent survey note that 69% of data center owners and operators reported experiencing some form of downtime in the past three years, with half of those incidents causing substantial financial, operational and reputational damage. In addition, 62% of the downtime incidents classified as significant, serious or severe, costing more than $100,000, while 15% of these events cost over $1 million.

Impact of Dirty Outdoor and Indoor Air 

Data centers are mostly located in industrialized countries afflicted with outdoor pollution thanks to sources like motor vehicles, manufacturing and industrial processing. This outdoor air pollution affects the indoor air quality of the data center environment because ventilation systems circulate airborne particles from outdoors into the facility. 

Large data centers themselves are often a source of air pollution because they require enormous amounts of energy to operate 24 hours a day. The 12 largest data centers in the world occupy millions of square feet of space and consume as much power as a mid-sized town. 

In addition, powerful HVAC systems constantly cool, clean and move the air to reduce the heat generated by the electronic equipment, maintain safe humidity levels and filter airborne contaminants. Ventilation systems for large data centers replace the air in the facility 30 to 50 times per hour. That’s significantly more often than the typical air change in an office facility, which is between two and six times per hour.  

Diesel Burning Pollutes the Air

Another way that data centers contribute to air pollution is through diesel-burning emergency generators. These are used to keep them running when the primary power goes out. In fact, some states track the impact from this diesel exhaust and  issue air quality permits to these technology facilities to limit air pollution levels from diesel-powered backup generators. A data center must prepare a health impact assessment of its toxic air pollution from diesel exhaust particles and accompanying nitrogen dioxide.  

It is common for a new data center campus to install 50 to 100 emergency generators, while existing facilities may need to add more generators as they expand. The Northern Regional Office of the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality specifically addresses emergency generators in its data center air permitting process. For example, due to the potential for increased emissions, facilities must use the Best Available Control Technology (BACT) to control emissions from new equipment, which usually requires the operator to complete an emissions analysis prior to permitting. They need to ascertain if a generator’s engine would require alterations to meet the 6.0 g/bhp-hr (grams per brake horsepower-hour) BACT emissions limit.

Overheated Servers

Another cause of poor air quality inside data centers is overheated servers that emit gaseous contaminants and particulates. These contaminants can contain chemicals that damage servers, circuit boards and cooling systems and can lead to crippling malfunctions and downtime. 

Contaminants emitted include:

• Sulfur
• Hydrogen sulfide
• Chlorine salt  

“Because ventilation systems draw in and circulate contaminated air throughout data centers, it’s important to employ effective air filtration to prevent damage to the sensitive electronic equipment,” explains Adam Wiggins, Data Center Segment Manager  at Camfil USA. “These dust particles can also damage HVAC components, which can lead to failure of the cooling system and cause dangerous overheating.” 

Clearing the Air Inside Data Centers

No matter the size of the data center, precise air filtration is necessary to remove airborne contaminants to prevent them from settling in equipment. Critical electronic components are all at risk if operators do not enforce a rigorous airborne contamination policy. These include:

• Servers
• Drives
• CPUs (central processing unit)
• GPUs (graphics processing unit) 
• Uninterruptible power supply systems 

Using the correct air filters helps to ensure the HVAC system is working at the highest level, which in turn reduces energy costs. Accurate air filtration cleans the air inside data centers and pressurizes the air to block external pollutants from entering the facility.  

Using low-quality air filters in a data center ventilation system or neglecting to maintain air filters can cause up to a 30% drop in efficiency over the entire system. This is because the system can’t effectively push air through the poorly made, overused or clogged filters. When the filters are compromised, the system uses more power and takes more time to reach the same result as a system using high-quality, properly maintained filters.

“In order to operate 24/7, all components and equipment in the data center must work in concert without interruption. If there is a disruption anywhere along the chain, the entire system is at risk of shutting down. A proactive approach to keeping a data center operational is to prevent the effects of poor indoor air quality by using the appropriate air filters in the ventilation system,” Wiggins  explains. 

Camfil Air Filter Solutions for Data Centers 

Installing Camfil’s 5-star air filters in existing air ventilation systems can reduce energy expenditure by up to 40% by improving airflow through the system. These filters are rated as 5-star filters through the Energy Cost Index (ECI) program. Based upon a five-star scale, the Energy Cost Index is an indicator of what a filter will cost over its lifetime. The best rating—five stars—indicates that the filter is the most energy-efficient, longest-lasting filter available.

To achieve high filtration efficiency to protect delicate electronic equipment at data centers, start with high quality prefilters such as the Camfil 30/30 Dual 9 pleated panel air filters that are effective at removing larger airborne contaminants.. Then pair them with Durafil ES filters that enable the air handling system to remove submicron sized particles. The Durafil ES filter is available with MERV ratings from 11 to 16 for the potential to filter out particles down to .3 microns in size.

Camfil’s Hi-Flo ES filter is also ideal for data center applications because it provides a balance of filtration and energy efficiency without the need for a prefilter. The Hi-Flo ES filter removes large and submicron-sized particles from the air while enabling lower energy consumption than a typical prefilter/filter configuration. 

“Camfil filters maintain their efficiency over time because they last longer and provide the lowest total cost of ownership in the industry,” Wiggins  notes. “They significantly reduce energy costs, and our data center customers have reported yearly energy savings in the six-figure range.” 

To learn more about these air filters, visit Camfil’s data center information page. 

The post Data Center Defense: Reduce Airborne Contaminants to Improve Indoor Air Quality  appeared first on Air Filters for Clean Air.

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Air Pollution in the United States: What Are the Most Polluted Places in America in 2022?

Air pollution is a serious public health issue worldwide. The World Health Organization estimates that at least seven million premature deaths across the globe can be attributed to air pollution exposure, and 99% of the world’s population lives in an area with more pollution than the WHO suggests is safe for humans to be exposed to (1). 

Although the majority of these premature air pollution-related deaths occur in low- and middle-income nations, with countries in West Africa and South Asia experiencing the highest per-capita rates of deaths related to poor indoor air quality, many populations in the United States are at significant risk of health complications caused by air pollution (2). 

In this article, air quality experts from Camfil USA, a global leader in air filtration technology, research, and engineering, discuss the most polluted areas in the United States, based on data from the American Lung Association’s 2022 State of the Air Report (SOTA).

2022 State of the Air Report Findings Explained

Each year for the past twenty-three years, the American Lung Association has published its State of the Air Report (SOTA), which is an extensive analysis of American air quality based on air quality monitoring data from across the country. Air quality data — which was obtained from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Air Quality System (AQS) — was available in 932 counties, representing 263 million Americans (3). 

Importantly, many counties do not have any monitoring equipment, meaning that the pollution-related health risks for almost one million Americans, most of whom live in impoverished rural areas, are unknown.

The State of the Air report focuses on the two pollutants widely considered by public health experts and medical professionals to be the most dangerous: ozone and fine particulate matter (PM2.5). Particulate matter was tested in two ways: yearly average (representing chronic exposure) and highest 24-hour average (representing dangerous spikes in particulate matter exposure). 

Based on the data, each area is given a grade for each category it has data available for. 

“The ‘State of the Air’ 2022 report finds that despite decades of progress on cleaning up sources of air pollution, more than 40% of Americans—over 137 million people—are living in places with failing grades for unhealthy levels of particle pollution or ozone,” the American Lung Association commented (4), “This is 2.1 million more people breathing unhealthy air compared to last year’s report. Nearly 9 million more people were impacted by daily spikes in deadly particle pollution than reported last year.”

Furthermore, the report found that people of color were 3.6 times more likely to live in an area with a failing grade in all three categories. 

Most Polluted American Cities by Ozone Concentration

One of the three main criteria that the State of the Air Report examines is ozone levels in the air. Although atmospheric ozone (the “ozone layer”) is an essential layer of protection from harsh ultraviolet sunlight that allows life to flourish on earth, ground-level ozone presents short- and long-term health hazards.  

The ten areas with the highest levels of ozone pollution in 2022 were (5): 

1. Los Angeles-Long Beach, California
2. Bakersfield, California
3. Visalia, California
4. Fresno-Madera-Hanford, California
5. Phoenix-Mesa, Arizona
6. San Diego-Chula Vista-Carlsbad, California
7. Denver-Aurora, Colorado
8. Houston-The Woodlands, Texas
9. Sacramento-Roseville, California
10. Salt Lake City-Provo-Orem, Utah

Most Polluted American Cities by Year-Round PM2.5 Exposure

One of the leading environmental risks, according to the EPA, is particulate matter, which is sometimes also called particle pollution. Particulate matter is composed of a range of materials; any solid or liquid particles small and light enough to remain suspended in the air are considered particulate matter. 

Camfil’s article on the health risks associated with particulate matter explains the three main categories of particulate matter in greater detail: PM10, PM2.5, and PM1. The numbers indicate the size of particles in microns. Although everyday pollutants — such as dust, pollen, and pet dander, which may not seem harmful to most people — particulate matter harms our health when it enters our bodies through our lungs. 

These cities are the most polluted in terms of yearly average levels of particulate matter exposure:

1. Bakersfield, California
2. Fresno-Madera-Hanford, California
3. Visalia, California
4. San Jose-San Francisco-Oakland, California
5. Los Angeles-Long Beach, California
6. Medford-Grants Pass, Oregon
7. Fairbanks, Alaska
8. Phoenix-Mesa, Arizona
9. Chico, California
10. El Centro, California

Most Polluted American Cities by 24-Hour PM2.5 Exposure

Although long-term exposure to particulate matter can cause serious heart and lung issues, particularly for those with other medical conditions (such as asthma, COPD, and lung disease), short-term, single instances of particulate matter are also linked with unpleasant respiratory symptoms (such as coughing, sneezing, watering eyes, a sore throat, dizziness, and headaches). 

These cities had the highest levels of particulate matter in a twenty-four hour period across the year:

1. Fresno-Madera-Hanford, California
2. Bakersfield, California
3. Fairbanks, Alaska
4. San Jose-San Francisco-Oakland, California
5. Redding-Red Bluff, California
6. Chico, California
7. Sacramento-Roseville, California
8. Los Angeles-Long Beach, California
9. Yakima, Washington
10. Visalia, California

About Camfil Clean Air Solutions

For more than half a century, Camfil has been helping people breathe cleaner air. As a leading manufacturer of premium clean air solutions, we provide commercial and industrial systems for air filtration and air pollution control that improve worker and equipment productivity, minimize energy use, and benefit human health and the environment. We firmly believe that the best solutions for our customers are the best solutions for our planet, too. That’s why every step of the way – from design to delivery and across the product life cycle – we consider the impact of what we do on people and on the world around us. Through a fresh approach to problem-solving, innovative design, precise process control, and a strong customer focus we aim to conserve more, use less and find better ways – so we can all breathe easier.

The Camfil Group is headquartered in Stockholm, Sweden, and has 31​ manufacturing sites, six R&D centers, local sales offices in 35+ countries, and about 5,200 employees and growing. We proudly serve and support customers in a wide variety of industries and communities across the world. To discover how Camfil USA can help you to protect people, processes and the environment, visit us at www.camfil.us/ 

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Media Contact: 

Lynne Laake 

Camfil USA Air Filters 

T: 888.599.6620 

E: Lynne.Laake@camfil.com

F: Friend Camfil USA on Facebook

T: Follow Camfil USA on Twitter 

Y: Watch Camfil Videos on YouTube

L: Follow our LinkedIn Page

 

Sources: 

1. https://www.who.int/health-topics/air-pollution#tab=tab_1
2. https://www.who.int/data/gho/data/indicators/indicator-details/GHO/ambient-and-household-air-pollution-attributable-death-rate-(per-100-000-population-age-standardized)
3. https://www.lung.org/research/sota/key-findings/people-at-risk
4. https://www.lung.org/research/sota/key-findings
5. https://www.lung.org/research/sota/city-rankings/most-polluted-cities 

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