We often talk about electrification through the lens of lowering energy bills, improving comfort, and addressing the climate crisis. But widespread residential electrification also has the potential to bring about massive health benefits, slashing our outdoor air pollution, and allowing our communities to breathe easier. 

Currently, home space heating, water heating, and clothes drying that rely on fossil fuels and inefficient electric appliances emit more than half a million tons of fine particulate matter (PM2.5) and its precursors outside our homes each year. This pollution negatively impacts our health, causing cardiac events, respiratory issues, and even premature death, and disproportionately affects marginalized groups and those with preexisting health issues like children and seniors.

New modeling from the research team at Rewiring America, shows that electrifying these systems would hugely improve public health. Combined, we’re looking at about $40 billion in health benefits each year: 1,300 fewer hospital admissions and ER visits, 220,000 fewer asthma attacks, 670,000 fewer days of reduced activity or missed work for Americans each year, and 3,400 fewer premature deaths — that’s as many people as are killed each year in the United States from distracted driving. Household electrification, combined with an electricity grid that is continuously getting cleaner, will reduce total pollution from PM2.5 and its precursors by 300,000 tons a year — the equivalent of taking 40 million cars off the road.

But our team did not stop there. We know it's data like this that can empower advocates and policymakers at all levels of government to make the case for widescale residential electrification, not just as a strategy to lower bills or reduce greenhouse gases, but also as a public health solution.

That’s why we’ve created the Community Health and Outdoor Air Quality Impacts Dashboard. With this tool, stakeholders are able to zoom in on our analysis to see the quantifiable health benefits awaiting their community once it electrifies. 

Maybe you're a policymaker in North Carolina looking to secure funding for a new heat pump rebate program to reduce energy burden for low-income households. Using the tool’s map, you determine that if all low-income homes in North Carolina were able to upgrade to a heat pump, it would contribute more than $135 million in health benefits each year.