Kody Moody

Professor Brown
English 2010
February 16, 2015
Utahs Air Quality and Its Effects on Mental Health

While driving to work on a cold winter day along the Wasatch front,
chances are that you cannot see the majestic mountains which tower over
our great city. That big grey pocket of dust that collects within the valley is
Utahs annual inversion. This happens every winter when cold air gets
trapped under warmer air above making it stagnant and soupy with no way
to move the cold air out until the next storm system. We all know how it
effects our breathing, making us all want to take a deep breath, but what we
dont really think about is what it is doing to your mental health and
wellbeing when all of that particulate matter that is congesting the air gets
inside your body. With all of the talk about what to do about Utahs air

problems during the winter months, focusing on how air pollution affects
your brain might get you thinking more about your mental health.
When talking about mental wellbeing, nobody thinks that they are
doing any harm to someones mental state by driving their car to work every
day, or that some of problems related to mental illness are contributed to
what lies in the west mountains. One classic argument is that the inversion
is not a problem all year round and that Utah has some of the healthiest
people in America. This may be true in some regards but when it comes to
Utahs mental health, the numbers dont lie.

According to a report published last year by The National Survey on Drug

Use and Health, Utah has the highest rate of mental illness in the country at

5.14%. The image above displays how Utah compares to the rest of the
United States on matters of mental health. This leads me to my next point.
Another Argument is that there is no immediate link between Utahs
mental health issues and our air pollution. There has in fact been a few
studies that show there is a correlation between the two. Based on an article
posted by the Salt Lake Tribune in April 2014, which says that according to
Utah research, suicide rates are more frequent during times when Utahs air
pollution is highest. There have also been numerous studies that show the
effects of pollution on mental health. In one of the first long term studies
published on the effects of pollution on mental health, Ohio State
researchers found that long term effects on mice exposed to fine particulate
matter showed decreases in memory function and increases in depression.
In a learning and memory test, mice were placed in the middle of a brightly lit arena and given
two minutes to find an escape hole leading to a dark box where they feel more comfortable. They were
given five days of training to locate the escape hole, but the mice who breathed the polluted air took
longer to learn where the escape hole was located. The mice exposed to polluted air also were less likely
to remember where the escape hole was when tested later. (ScienceDaily, 2011).

Other studies I found show that Utah not only has one of the highest
rates of Autism in the country, there is a direct link between the air we
breathe and the particulates in the air that cause autism, even in the womb.
As recent as December of 2014, a study was published by Harvard School of
Public Health that shows even breathing small particulate matter in air

pollution can increase your odds of having a child on the autism spectrum by
two times. This is cause by exposure to these small particulates within the
third trimester. Utah has a rate of 1 in 54 children with autism as opposed to
the national average rate of 1 in 68. Utah also sees 1 in 34 boys diagnosed
with autism spectrum disorder. All this available information made available
by the CDC.
In looking at the data that is out there on the effects of air pollution to
your mental well being, there is no denying that our inversion air is doing
more damage than people really like to think about. With the continued
increases in Utahs population this problem is sure to only get worse unless
we start taking all of the health issues surrounding air pollution seriously,
especially our mental health.

Works Cited
Centers for Disease Control. Centers for Disease Control. CDC,
n.d. Web. 17 Feb. 2015.
<http://www.cdc.gov/ncbddd/autism/states/addm-utah-fact-sheet.pdf>
Clean Air. Clean Air. UDEQ, 2014. Web. 17 Feb.
<2015http://www.airquality.utah.gov/clean_air/archive/inversion.htm>
Maffley, Brian. Utah research: suicides more frequent during pollution
spikes. SLTrib.
SLTrib, 8, April 2014. Web. 17 Feb. 2015.
<http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/news/57785610-78/pollution-suicide-riskutah.html.csp>
Ohio State University. "Air pollution linked to learning and memory
problems, depression." ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 6 July 2011. Web. 17, Feb.
2015. <www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/07/110705071735.htm>

Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services. The NSDUH Report.

CBHSQ,
2014. Web. 17 Feb 2015
<http://archive.samhsa.gov/data/2k14/NSDUH170/sr170-mental-illness-state-

estimates-2014.htm>