Air pollution is not only bad for the lungs. It can also damage the heart, a second study found.

“Most people don’t know that exposure to fine particles in air pollution damages the heart. It increases the risk of heart attack and death from heart disease,” says Dr. Stacey Alexeeff, scientist and biostatistician in our research department.

Common causes of this pollution are emissions from vehicles and industrial plants. Living near busy roads or highways or near factories increases the exposure.

Lower-income neighborhoods are often located near sources of pollution. People living in lower-income neighborhoods are at the highest risk of developing heart problems due to pollution, Alexeeff said. This makes poor air quality a major health equity issue.

Alexeeff and his team studied 3.7 million Kaiser Permanente members in Northern California. They used geocoding to convert each person’s address into map coordinates. They looked at how high the particulate matter pollution was in each area for 10 years. Then they measured how air pollution contributed to a higher risk of heart attacks and deaths from heart disease each year.

Protecting our communities

At Kaiser Permanente, we are constantly working to improve the health of our communities.

Here are just a few examples of how we are creating more green spaces and reducing air pollution:

Sound public policy — Everyone deserves the chance to live a healthy, fulfilling life. But not everyone has the same opportunities to achieve that. With CityHealth, we encourage city leaders to take public policies that improve the health of all. These policies include policies that increase public green spaces, such as parks.

Climate protection measures — In 2020, we became carbon neutral. We now remove as many greenhouse gases from the atmosphere as we emit. We are working to achieve net zero emissions by 2050. Net zero goes beyond carbon neutrality and also takes into account indirect emissions such as greenhouse gases generated by our supplier network.

Green medical facilities — We build medical centers that use water, energy and other resources efficiently. 78 of our medical facilities are LEED certified. LEED stands for Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design. It is a widely used rating system for green building.