Air Pollution and Criminality in Baltimore City, MD: Does Pollution Affect Rates of Violent Crime?

Abstract

The effects of pollution on human health, cognition, and behavior have been widely studied by researchers from a myriad of backgrounds. Findings of this sort of research have underpinned many public health interventions in the United States aimed at improving people’s quality of life. Air pollution, a pervasive and often invisible threat, has been a central target of such policies and programs. This thesis intends to build on that momentum by couching the effects of air pollution within another perennial policy concern that is too often overlooked as a matter of public health: crime control. Building off of similar studies in the field, this analysis focuses on the concentration of PM2.5 and rates of violent crime in Baltimore City, MD over a period o five years between 2014 and 2018. In better understanding the relationship between air pollution and violent crime, policymakers can design policies that simultaneously protects the public health from two persistent, existential environmental threats.