A new study published 8/29/25 was groundbreaking in a unique way – it analyzed the health impacts from fossil fuels from beginning to end (unlike most studies) – from exploration, to extraction, to consumption in its end use. The harms of fossil fuel use are well known, but these “full life-cycle” findings were even worse than predicted:
- Air pollution from oil and gas causes more than 90,000 premature deaths across the US each year
- More than 10,000 pre-term births are caused by particulate matter from O&G (per year)
- 216,000 cases of child-hood onset asthma cases (per year) are linked to O&G nitrogen dioxide emissions
- 1,610 annual lifetime cancer cased are caused by hazardous O&G air emissions
- Indigenous and Hispanic people are most affected by O&G pollution from exploration, extraction, transportation and storage
- Black and Asian people are most affected by emissions from O&G processing, refining, manufacturing and consumption
Even more troubling, this study was only able to use data from 2017 (the most recent year of complete data available) so these estimates of health damage are likely a vast underestimate of the current situation. Between 2017 and 2023, US oil and gas production has increased by 40% and consumption by 8%.
For a layman’s explanation of the study’s key findings, click here.
This figure shows the relative contributions to air pollution from the stages of oil and gas life cycle – and the actual chemicals/particles released:
The figure below shows how each different ethnic group is affected by O&G pollution at the various stages of the O&G lifecycle. It also displays the types of health problems attributable to certain pollutants and at which O&G lifecycle stages:
