Assessing the environmental justice implications of decarbonizing the US electric grid: estimating changes in asthma exacerbation by race and income

Abstract This paper examines how air quality improvements due to the 100% decarbonization of the US power sector in 2040 can reduce asthma exacerbation among children disaggregated by poverty status, race, and geography. Using spatial datasets that differentiate asthma prevalence by income, race, and state, we find that children living in households with income below the poverty line receive a disproportionate share of the benefits. To obtain these results, we employ several different federally administered datasets: American Community Survey, Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS), and Poverty Thresholds as provided by the US Census. We find that Black children and poor children, on average, have higher reductions in exposure to PM2.5. Nationally, close to 235 372 asthma exacerbation cases will be averted in 2040 under the decarbonization policy compared with Business-as-Usual. States with significant gains in asthma cases averted per 100 000 are Indiana, Kentucky, Ohio, Missouri, Pennsylvania, Texas, and Wisconsin. Furthermore, since the asthma portion of the BRFSS is not conducted in South Carolina, Colorado, Arkansas, and South Dakota, these states were omitted from the analysis. Across all states with significant gains, children living below the poverty line have larger health benefits than children above the poverty line. Households with child poverty have 50% larger reductions in asthma exacerbations than households without childhood poverty. Black children below the poverty line experience 33% higher health gains compared to Black children per 100 000 above the poverty line, 50% higher health gains compared to White children below the poverty line, and 159% higher than White children above the poverty line. We also provide general methodological insights for quantifying the environmental justice impacts of regulatory policies. We demonstrate why using race and poverty status-based prevalence rates is critical for understanding the distribution of health improvements and evaluating whether policies contribute to environmental justice goals.