Spatial Pattern of Outdoor PM2.5 Air Pollution in U.S. Prison Landscapes from 1998 to 2022.

Exposure to fine particulate matter (PM2.5) is associated with the development of diseases and premature death. However, little is known about the potential PM2.5 exposure of incarcerated populations. In this paper, we used satellite-derived data to assess outdoor PM2.5 concentrations at 1,593 prisons in the contiguous U.S. from 1998 to 2022. Across our study period, despite overall national decreases in PM2.5 concentrations and disparities, prisons on average experienced higher pollution than the nonincarcerated U.S. population. In 2022, over 500 prisons had spatially averaged concentrations higher than the population-weighted concentrations of their home states. We also found evidence that in 12 states, state and federal prison populations systematically had higher PM2.5 than the nonincarcerated populations in those states; similar findings were obtained for national analyses stratified by degree of urbanicity. In 2022, about 7% of prisons were above federal air quality standards, with over 50% of these prisons located in California. Collectively, the contributions of this study in finding health-relevant disparities in outdoor PM2.5 concentrations for prisons across several different metrics may highlight an urgent public health crisis that requires deeper inquiry and interventions from government officials. Decarceration would work to immediately reduce the population of people vulnerable to air pollution in prisons.

• Publication year

  2026

• Venue

  Environmental Science and Technology

• Publication date

  2026-02-03

• Fields of study

  Medicine, Environmental Science

• Identifiers
  DOI 10.1021/acs.est.5c09650PMID 41630591
• External record

  Open on Semantic Scholar

• Source metadata

  Semantic Scholar

• No claims are published for this paper.

• No concepts are published for this paper.

• Prisons and Pollution: A Nationwide Analysis of Carceral Environmental Inequality

  2024cited by this paper
• “Because we’re dying in here”: A study of environmental vulnerability and climate risks in incarceration infrastructure

  2024cited by this paper
• Satellite data for environmental justice: a scoping review of the literature in the United States

  2024cited by this paper
• PM2.5 data inputs alter identification of disadvantaged communities

  2023cited by this paper
• The contribution of wildfire to PM_2.5 trends in the USA

  2023cited by this paper
• “The Volunteering Days is Gone”: All‐Hazard Incarcerated Firefighters and Rural Disinvestment ☆

  2023cited by this paper
• Examining PM2.5 concentrations in counties with and without state-run correctional facilities in Texas

  2023cited by this paper
• Ventilation conditions during COVID-19 outbreaks in six California state carceral institutions

  2023cited by this paper
• Satellite Remote Sensing for Environmental Data Justice: Perspectives from Anti-Prison Community Organizers on the Uses of Geospatial Data

  2023cited by this paper
• The Intersection of Incarceration and Injustice: Environmental Burdens in Prison Communities

  2022cited by this paper
• Daily Local-Level Estimates of Ambient Wildfire Smoke PM2.5 for the Contiguous US.

  2022cited by this paper
• Air Pollution, Socioeconomic Status, and Age-Specific Mortality Risk in the United States

  2022cited by this paper
• Air pollution exposure disparities across US population and income groups

  2022cited by this paper
• The Effects of Ventilation and Filtration on Indoor PM2.5 in Office Buildings in Four Countries.

  2021cited by this paper
• No Justice, No Resilience: Prison Abolition As Disaster Mitigation in an Era of Climate Change

  2021cited by this paper
• Monthly Global Estimates of Fine Particulate Matter and Their Uncertainty.

  2021cited by this paper
• Disparities in PM2.5 air pollution in the United States

  2020cited by this paper
• Site Fight! Toward the Abolition of Immigrant Detention on Tacoma’s Tar Pits (and Everywhere Else)

  2020cited by this paper
• Polluting our prisons? An examination of Oklahoma prison locations and toxic releases, 2011–2017

  2020cited by this paper
• Prisons as LULUs: Understanding the Parallels between Prison Proliferation and Environmental Injustices

  2020cited by this paper
• Do Fine Particulate Air Pollution (PM2.5) Exposure and its Attributable Premature Mortality Differ for Immigrants Compared to those Born in the United States?

  2020cited by this paper
• What Caused Racial Disparities in Particulate Exposure to Fall? New Evidence from the Clean Air Act and Satellite-Based Measures of Air Quality

  2020cited by this paper
• Contribution of Wildland-Fire Smoke to US PM2.5 and Its Influence on Recent Trends.

  2019cited by this paper
• Struggles for Environmental Justice in US Prisons and Jails

  2019cited by this paper
• Global estimates of mortality associated with long-term exposure to outdoor fine particulate matter

  2018cited by this paper
• Linking Environmental and Criminal Injustice: The Mining to Prison Pipeline in Central Appalachia

  2018cited by this paper
• Airborne particles in indoor environment of homes, schools, offices and aged care facilities: The main routes of exposure.

  2017cited by this paper
• Routledge international handbook of visual criminology

  2017cited by this paper
• Geographies of race and ethnicity II

  2017cited by this paper
• Which came first, people or pollution? A review of theory and evidence from longitudinal environmental justice studies

  2015cited by this paper
• Where is the Land of Opportunity? The Geography of Intergenerational Mobility in the United States*

  2014cited by this paper

• No citing papers are available for this paper.