Reading Materials

[Note: Some of the links will require the students to use their LUC ID to access Sakai.]

Air Pollution In General

•  A General introduction to Air Pollution, prepared by Ping Jing for the CARE students. [This document was updated by Ping Jing on 3 Feb 2023.]

• The Improvement of Spatial-temporal Resolution of PM2.5 Estimation Based on Micro-air Quality Sensors by Using Data Fusion Technique, Lin et al., Environment International, 2020.

• Estimating daily PM2.5 concentrations in New York City at the neighborhood-scale: Implications for integrating non-regulatory measurements, Huang et al., Science of the Total Environment, 2019.

• In the Fog about Smog, Butcher, G., ChemMatters, 2013.

• State of the Air Report 2022, American Lung Association, 2022 (See an NPR news article about this report)

• Connections between Summer Air Pollution and Stagnation, Kerr and Waugh, Environmental Research Letters, 2018.

• Community-Based Measurements Reveal Unseen Differences during Air Pollution Episodes, Kelly et al., Environmental Science and Technology, 2021.

• The Changing Face of Urban Air Pollution: Volatile organic compounds in U.S. urban air increasingly derive from consumer products, Lewis, Science, 2018.

• Scientists reveal how air pollution can cause lung cancer in people who have never smoked, The Francis Crick Institute, 2022.

• Air Pollutants and Childhood Asthma in the Bronx, Gonzalez et al., Journal of Undergraduate Chemistry Research, 2021.

• Daily Satellite Observations of Nitrogen Dioxide Air Pollution Inequality in New York City, New York and Newark, New Jersey: Evaluation and Application, Dressel et al., Environmental Science and Technology, 2022. 

• Wildfire Smoke Is Erasing Progress on Clean Air

Air Pollution in Chicago

• Trends in PM2.5 emissions, concentrations and apportionments in Detroit and Chicago, Milando et al., Atmospheric Environment, 2016.

• Summary and analysis of available PM2.5 measurements in Illinois, Sweet and Gatz, Atmospheric Environment, 1998. [It includes information about seasonal variation in the chemical composition of PM2.5 in Chicago back in the mid-1990s.]

• City of Chicago's Air Quality and Health Report 2020.

• Chicagoans who live near heavy-traffic corridors are breathing the most polluted air, Gupta et al., WBEZChicago, 2022. 

• Air Quality and Health Index Data Pack, Chicago Department of Public Health, 2020.

• Video: Every Breath You Take: Air Quality in Chicago, presented by Stacy Montgomery. It specifically address's Chicago's air pollution problem.

• Poster: Characterization of Chicago Air Quality

Papers Relevant to PurpleAir Data

• Environmental justice analysis of wildfire-related PM2.5 exposure using low-cost sensors in California, Kramer et al., Science of the Total Environment, 2022. [The Section 2.2 in this paper provides a good reference for how to use PurpleAir data.]

Air Pollution and Inequity

• Historical Redlining Is Associated with Present-Day Air Pollution Disparities in U.S. Cities, Lane et al., Environmental Science and Technology Letters, 2022.

• Resolving and Predicting Neighborhood Vulnerability to Urban Heat and Air Pollution: Insights From a Pilot Project of Community Science, Wang et al., GeoHealth, 2022.

• Even Low Levels of Soot Can be Deadly to Older People, Research Finds, Friedman, L. The New York Times, Jan 26, 2022 (You can get free access to the Times through Loyola.) 

• PM2.5 Polluters Disproportionately and Systemically Affect People of Color in the United States, Tessum et al., Science Advances, 2021.

• People of Color Breathe More Unhealthy Air from Nearly All Polluting Sources, Lloyd, Scientific American, 2021. (Based on research reported in Science Advances)

• Leveraging Satellite Data to Address Air Pollution Inequities, Anenberg et al., Magazine for Environmental Managers, 2021.

• Community-based Measurements of Air Pollution, Kelly et al., Environmental Science and Technology, 2020.

• Chicagoans who live near heavy-traffic corridors are breathing the most polluted air, Gupta et al., WBEZChicago, 2022. 

• Chicago air quality sensors show disparities across the city — and unexplained spikes in pollution, Bergin and Wang, MUCKROCK, 2022

• Demographic Inequities in Health Outcomes and Air Pollution Exposure in the Atlanta Area and its Relationship to Urban Infrastructure, Servadio et al., Journal of Urban Health, 2019.

• Daily Satellite Observations of Nitrogen Dioxide Air Pollution Inequality in New York City, New York and Newark, New Jersey: Evaluation and Application, Dressel et al., Environmental Science and Technology, 2022. 

• On the distribution of low-cost PM2.5 sensors in the US: demographic and air quality associations, deSouza and Kinney, Journal of exposure science & environmental epidemiology, 2021.

• Commercial Buildings in Communities with Different Income and Racial Characteristics: A Comparison of Energy Efficiency and Fuel Sources, U.S. EPA ENERGY STAR Portfolio Manager, May 2022