"In most of the country, formaldehyde contributes more to outdoor cancer risk than any other toxic air pollutant. Look up your address to see risks from the chemical on your block and where it comes from."
"ProPublica analyzed formaldehyde concentrations modeled by the Environmental Protection Agency and released through the agency’s AirToxScreen database and found that, in every populated U.S. census block, formaldehyde in the air poses an incremental lifetime cancer risk greater than one incidence of cancer in every million people, the limit that the agency aims to stay below for toxic air pollutants. Some 320 million people live in areas where that risk is at least 10 times higher. In other areas, the cancer risk from formaldehyde is even worse. We're making that data searchable in this interactive database.
AirToxScreen works by modeling a year’s worth of emissions (in this case, emissions in 2020) along with weather data and natural sources to approximate what the concentrations of different chemicals are in each census block. Although emissions were likely lower than usual in 2020 because of the COVID-19 shutdowns, we used 2020 data because it’s the most recent and most detailed available. (Prior to 2020, AirToxScreen provided results by census tract, each of which contains many blocks.) The data does not include the risk from formaldehyde in indoor air, which studies show is much higher than outdoors.
The data includes two categories of modeled chemical concentrations: ambient concentrations and exposure concentrations. Ambient concentrations are the agency’s estimates for the amount of a chemical in the outdoor air in the tract, whereas exposure concentrations are the agency’s estimates for how much of a chemical a human in the area realistically inhales."
Al Shaw and Sharon Lerner report for ProPublica December 3, 2024.
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