When we think of our personal health, we tend to focus on things like giving up tobacco and alcohol and ensuring good sanitation and cleanliness. Air pollution is not at the top of the list, but it belongs there. It is the greatest single external risk to health, reducing life expectancy by a global average of 2.3 years, according to the University of Chicago’s 2023 Air Quality Life Index.
More than 96% of Latin America’s population is exposed to PM 2.5 or fine particulate matter, that exceeds the World Health Organization’s guidelines, according to the Index. PM 2.5 comes from common sources like cars, factories, and wildfires, and contributes to everything from respiratory infections and heart problems to cancer. But there are some hotspots of such inhalable pollution that are worse than others. In Mexico, Guatemala, for example, where air pollution is roughly 10 times the World Health Organization suggested limit, residents lose 4.4 years of their life to air pollution, while that stands at 3.1 years in Cercado, Bolivia and 2.5 years in Porto Velho, Brazil, according to the Index.
The Effect of Labor Informality
Unsurprisingly, the poor often suffer the most from PM 2.5 pollution. As revealed in a 2022 IDB study, informal workers—those who generally work for small, unregistered companies—generally work 20% more than formal workers at established firms on days of dangerous air quality in Mexico City. Recent hospital admissions for respiratory diseases in the city have been driven by municipalities with large percentages of informal workers. To make things worse, informal workers often lack flexibility in their work schedules and access to sick leave, with fewer opportunities to make up for days when they cannot work due to heavy pollution or pollution-related illnesses. This exacerbates income inequalities and feeds into desperation over dirty air. Nearly 95% of respondents in a 2019 survey of about 2000 households in lower-income neighborhoods of Mexico City said air pollution was a “problem” or a “big problem.”
Such predicaments demand solutions. But lack of trust stands as a major obstacle. Less than one in three people trust their government in Latin America and the Caribbean, one of the lowest levels in the world. That means in practice that although many people in the region know that air pollution is harmful, they may not trust that their government has the capacity and the commitment to implement effective long-term solutions and may fail to back government-led initiatives, even when well-conceived.
Air Pollution and Trust
We explored the relationship between trust and the demand for public policy in Mexico City using survey data we collected from June–August 2019. Specifically, we asked survey participants if they would i) support an additional tax to improve air quality ii) if they preferred that the government keep and control revenues from pollution fees or that the money be distributed to citizens and iii) if they preferred that public spending be on environmental public or private goods (that is, whether money should be spent on public goods that benefit everybody or on private goods that mitigate the impact on those most directly affected).
We also asked about their trust in various dimensions, with results showing low trust in political figures and institutions, including the president and political parties, and relatively high trust in family and friends.
We found that three out of four participants would be willing to pay a $100 peso additional tax to prevent contingencias (environmental emergencies created by high pollution days), illustrating the seriousness of the issue for citizens. At the same time, the level of support correlated with trust in government, including in the president in power.
Those with higher trust in government want it to have more control over the revenue from pollution regulation. But participants generally preferred to allocate revenue from pollution control to citizens rather than the government. They also preferred using the revenue to provide public goods rather than private ones. In response to another question, less than one-third of citizens said that local government takes effective measures to control air pollution.
Good Government’s Virtuous Circle
Such distrust in governments does not bode well for their ability to push through policies that give them significant discretion over spending, that require high levels of competence, that have significant short-term costs, and that may have effects that are not readily observed. And yet governments have little choice but to act: when it comes to air pollution, as the University of Chicago’s Index reveals, it is a matter of life and death. A virtuous circle must be created. Only with more honest and transparent investments, higher quality public services, and more effective responses to crises and disasters can a dynamic be created in which better policies lead to greater trust and ultimately to demand and support for still greater government action.
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