The Impacts of Ambient Air Quality on Asthma Outcomes in California: A longitudinal Analyses

This study investigates the relationship between ambient air quality and asthma-related health outcomes in California, focusing on emergency department visits and hospitalizations from 2005 to 2022. Despite California’s strict air quality regulations, many urban and rural communities still face significant pollution challenges that contribute to poor respiratory health, particularly among vulnerable populations. Using panel data from specific counties, this research examines the effects of key pollutants like nitrogen dioxide (NO2), carbon monoxide (CO), and fine particulate matter (PM2.5) on asthma outcomes. A fixed effects regression model is employed to control for unobserved heterogeneity and time-specific shocks ensuring robust estimates of the impact of pollution on health outcomes. The dependent variables that will be used for this study are asthma emergency department visits and asthma hospitalization cases and the independent variables will be the different pollutants under study namely CO, NO2, and PM2.5. Unlike previous studies that primarily focus on urban areas, this research integrates both urban and rural regions addressing a gap in the literature. Additionally, by aggregating daily pollution data into annual county-level data, this study introduces a novel approach to long-term environmental health analysis by assessing the efficacy of aggregated data in long-term analyses and offering insights into the management of large-scale datasets. Existing literature highlights that economically disadvantaged groups and children disproportionately suffer from pollution-related illnesses, further emphasizing the need for targeted interventions. The findings of this study will provide evidence on the impacts of ambient air quality on asthma levels in California.