Background and Overview
In Northern California, Contra Costa County residents are experiencing growing climate-change related impacts like extreme heat alongside persistent air quality issues from energy, industry, and transportation-related pollution. These exposures compound the disproportionate environmental, institutional, and social burdens many residents already face. While government and community-based organizations are working to address these issues, gaps remain in the data used to help inform and target interventions. As noted by impacted community members, local trends in air quality, particularly in overburdened communities, are not captured by regulatory air monitors focused on regional trends in particle pollution (PM2.5).Â
Through the multi-year Contra Costa County Climate, Air Pollution, and Pregnancy Study (CC-CAPPS), PSE has worked to address the county’s air monitoring gap by collaborating with community partners to deploy a network of 50 low-cost Aeroqual sensors in historically under-monitored communities. By combining these monitors with measurements from 700 privately-owned PurpleAir sensors and NASA’s publicly-available weather data, PSE researchers identified neighborhood-level trends in PM2.5 pollution and extreme heat exposure from September 2023 through May 2025.
Our culminating report expands the evidence base on the environmental exposures faced by Contra Costa’s communities and examines the landscape of potential interventions to address these challenges.
Key Findings
Our network of low cost sensors, whose deployment was advised by local community members to strategically fill in monitoring gaps, found higher PM2.5 concentrations in Richmond, San Pablo, Antioch, Oakley, and Pittsburg. East Contra Costa faced more frequent extreme heat, meaning that Pittsburg, Antioch, and Oakley, along with their surrounding suburbs, experienced higher levels of both air pollution and extreme heat.
Following the California Department of Public Health’s Climate Vulnerability Framework, we identified and mapped hot spots of climate vulnerability where these environmental exposures overlap with various indicators of high population sensitivity (such as high rates of poverty and outdoor workers) and low adaptive capacity (such as low tree cover and household air conditioning). These areas may be strong candidates for prioritizing interventions, as residents are at a high risk of exposure to air pollution, extreme heat, or both, with fewer resources to protect themselves. For example, greening initiatives providing shade relief could be especially effective in the East Contra Costa neighborhoods that faced more frequent extreme heat events and lower tree canopy coverage.Â
A review of the literature on extreme heat and air pollution interventions, coupled with a community listening session, highlighted how potential interventions align with community needs and which barriers may limit their implementation. This synthesis surfaced a set of key considerations to support planners and policymakers in effective intervention design. These considerations include hazards addressed, breadth of benefits, and implementing entity, as well as the financial, informational, and bureaucratic barriers households may face when trying to mitigate their climate-related exposures.Â
Insights
Our local monitoring network demonstrates the value of dense monitoring for characterizing exposures and informing intervention strategies. Policymakers and planners can address a community’s unique combination of environmental exposures, population sensitivities, and adaptive capacities by prioritizing interventions that offer aligned co-benefits and by anticipating barriers residents may face in adopting them. Direct community engagement can provide critical insights into local needs and barriers to program adoption.
Final Report
