Breathing at the Border: PM₂.₅ Exposure, Immigration, and COPD Across Census Tracts Close to Ports-of-Entry.

The North American Free Trade Agreement, now the US-Mexico-Canada Agreement, has increased semi-truck and vehicular traffic at international ports-of-entry, raising air pollution concerns in the US-Mexico border region. Studying the border county of El Paso, Texas, a central hub for Mexican imports, we extend the literature by examining the prevalence of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) across census tracts with varying proximities to the port-of-entry, PM2.5 exposure, and percent immigrant. We accomplish this objective by merging NASA PM2.5 measurements with health data from the US Centers for Disease Control and social vulnerability indicators from the US Census' American Community Survey. We also use ArcGIS Pro to determine each census tract's proximity to a port-of-entry. Using Generalized Linear Models, we found that PM2.5 and the percent foreign-born noncitizens are positively associated with COPD prevalence. Census tracts close to a port-of-entry, compared with those more than three miles away, have higher COPD prevalence. Moreover, COPD prevalence in immigrant communities and the effects of PM2.5 are stratified across census tracts by proximity to ports-of-entry.