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In the past year, the U.S. has seen horrific air pollution from wildfires spread everywhere from the major metropolitan areas of the Northeast to the plains of the Midwest. The impact is stark. Not only can poor air quality lead to increases in lung cancer cases and dementia, but it could also be the reason why your favorite sports team is performing poorly.
Now there’s even evidence that it could have a deadly impact on mental health.
A team of researchers at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign published a study Monday in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences that found air pollution may also cause spikes in suicide. This phenomenon disproportionately affects rural counties, where a 10 percent increase in pollution is linked to a 1.5 percent rise in suicide rates on average.