Evidence map›Paper›PMID 34285070›Full record

ArticleProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America2021

COVID-19 pandemic reveals persistent disparities in nitrogen dioxide pollution.

Gaige Hunter Kerr, Daniel L Goldberg, Susan C Anenberg

Open access · hybridAbstract read
In one paragraph

Article in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 39 papers.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
39citing papers in PubMed
9.3field-weighted citation impact, top 1% of its field
1 · What the graph read from it

What it found

Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.

The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.

2 · The registry

The trial behind it

Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.

Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.

3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

39 citing papers in PubMed, 110 citations in OpenAlex.

  1. Characterizing the near-road NOEnvironmental pollution and management (Amsterdam, Netherlands) · 2026
    Article
  2. TROPOMI CO and NOEnvironmental science & technology · 2026
    Article
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  8. Measuring historical pollution: Natural history collections as tools for public health and environmental justice research.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2025
    Article
  9. Article
  10. The Epidemiological and Toxicological Intersection of Air Pollution and Dementia.Reviews of environmental contamination and toxicology · 2025
    Review
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4 · The record

Corrections and comments

PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.

5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

3 authors at 2 institutions in 1 country.

Gaige Hunter KerrDepartment of Environmental and Occupational Health, Milken Institute School of Public Health, George Washington University, Washington, DC 20052; gaigekerr@gwu.edu.ORCID 0000-0001-8869-0752
Daniel L GoldbergDepartment of Environmental and Occupational Health, Milken Institute School of Public Health, George Washington University, Washington, DC 20052.ORCID 0000-0003-0784-3986
Susan C AnenbergDepartment of Environmental and Occupational Health, Milken Institute School of Public Health, George Washington University, Washington, DC 20052.ORCID 0000-0002-9668-603X
Milken Institute · USArgonne National Laboratory · US

Funding

Shared Services Center NASA 80NSSC19K0193
6 · The paper itself

Abstract

The unequal spatial distribution of ambient nitrogen dioxide ([Formula: see text]), an air pollutant related to traffic, leads to higher exposure for minority and low socioeconomic status communities. We exploit the unprecedented drop in urban activity during the COVID-19 pandemic and use high-resolution, remotely sensed [Formula: see text] observations to investigate disparities in [Formula: see text] levels across different demographic subgroups in the United States. We show that, prior to the pandemic, satellite-observed [Formula: see text] levels in the least White census tracts of the United States were nearly triple the [Formula: see text] levels in the most White tracts. During the pandemic, the largest lockdown-related [Formula: see text] reductions occurred in urban neighborhoods that have 2.0 times more non-White residents and 2.1 times more Hispanic residents than neighborhoods with the smallest reductions. [Formula: see text] reductions were likely driven by the greater density of highways and interstates in these racially and ethnically diverse areas. Although the largest reductions occurred in marginalized areas, the effect of lockdowns on racial, ethnic, and socioeconomic [Formula: see text] disparities was mixed and, for many cities, nonsignificant. For example, the least White tracts still experienced ∼1.5 times higher [Formula: see text] levels during the lockdowns than the most White tracts experienced prior to the pandemic. Future policies aimed at eliminating pollution disparities will need to look beyond reducing emissions from only passenger traffic and also consider other collocated sources of emissions such as heavy-duty vehicles.

Indexed as

Air PollutantsCOVID-19DemographyEnvironmental MonitoringHumansNitrogen DioxideSARS-CoV-2Socioeconomic FactorsTraffic-Related PollutionUnited StatesVehicle EmissionsAir PollutantsNitrogen DioxideVehicle Emissionsair pollutionCOVID-19environmental justicenitrogen dioxideTROPOMI

Identifiers

PMID34285070
PMCPMC8325165
OpenAlexW3123205547

What OpenQuestion holds

Textmetadata
LicenceCC BY
Read underepoch 390

Registered trials

None linked

Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.