Program on the Environment

Air pollution has been an ongoing public health problem that has worsened over the years. Since 1977, the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has been monitoring air pollution levels and presenting it a single value known as the Air Quality Index (AQI). This was designed to be easily understood by combining five major pollutants regulated under the Clean Air Act into six levels of health risks to inform and recommend actions for people of different vulnerabilities. However, reports have shown little use of AQI in policy making and personal decision-making. For my independent research, I explored successful environmental indices to find out the characteristics that make them useful for policy making and whether anything can be learned to increase the use of AQI. I found that indices accounting for two or more of the Pillars of Sustainability are more relevant to citizens. Indices with comparable environmental data across large geographic scales have increased applicability for policymakers. I identified the most suitable type of data for various places along the policy cycle. These findings were informed by my internship at EPA Region 10, where I worked on a project that looks at cost information available to state permit engineers when they make permitting decisions for major stationary sources of air pollution. Some permit engineers reflected that there were few data available for them and they lacked standardized and comprehensive guidelines when making these regulatory decisions, which further emphasizes the importance of environmental data and indices.