Industrial Air Toxicant Exposure and Individual Mortality: Evidence from the Americans’ Changing Lives Cohort, 1986–2019

Exposure to industrial air toxicants remains a leading environmental health risk in the United States (US). Our prospective cohort study examines the extent to which industrial air toxicant exposure accounts for individual mortality risk throughout the adult life course. Individual data come from Americans' Changing Lives, a nationally representative US cohort who were followed for six waves between 1986 and 2019 (N = 3,329). Industrial air toxicant data come from the Environmental Protection Agency's Risk-Screening Environmental Indicators Geographic Microdata; toxicants are recorded at each wave within five circular buffers surrounding respondents' homes at increasing radiuses (1-km to 25-km). We employ accelerated failure time-shared frailty survival models that account for unmeasured between-person differences in mortality risk, and other individual- and area-level characteristics measured over time. We report three key findings. First, associations between air toxicants and mortality are non-linear, such that respondents who reside in areas with relatively low toxicant levels still live for 1-2 fewer years, on average, compared to peers residing in the least polluted areas. Second, the association between air toxicant exposure and mortality increases across larger buffer areas. For instance, compared to their counterparts in the least polluted buffers, respondents who reside within the most polluted 1-km buffers during the study period live for 2 fewer years, on average, while those in the most polluted 25-km buffers live for 4 fewer years. Third, several of these associations are increased for respondents who identify as non-Hispanic Black (vs. White), report lower incomes, or reside in high-poverty census tracts. Our study corroborates that industrial air toxicants remain significant environmental health risks in the US, especially for socioeconomically disadvantaged populations.