Opening

Air pollution is a major health threat in Mexico

Air pollution affects everyone. In Mexico in 2024, the nitrogen dioxide, ozone, and fine particles in the air were linked to tens of thousands of deaths and to new childhood illnesses. How much harm a person faces depends on where they live, how old they are, and who they are.

This is the story of that harm: how big it is, where it hits hardest, and how much of it comes from one key industry: oil and gas. The numbers come from a single, consistent model that covers the whole country, down to individual municipalities.

76,000deaths a year linked to fine-particle (PM₂.₅) pollution

39%of all respiratory deaths in adults linked to ozone (O₃)

21,400new childhood asthma cases a year linked to PM₂.₅

Section 1 of 3 · The national picture

Three pollutants we can measure across the country

These are the three pollutants we were able to measure nationwide. They are not the only harmful things in Mexico’s air, but they are the ones this model can quantify, municipality by municipality. Scroll to see each one on the map.

Air pollution gives thousands of children asthma

Air pollution does more than shorten lives. Fine particles are linked to about 21,400 new cases of childhood asthma each year, which is more than 1 in 4 of all new asthma cases in children.

21,400new childhood asthma cases · 28% of new cases (under 20)

The price tag · What the burden costs

Put a number on it

Deaths and illnesses are the real cost of air pollution. To compare that cost to other things society spends on, researchers also express it in money, using a standard value for a statistical life drawn from Mexican research. Measured this way, the yearly health burden runs into the hundreds of billions of dollars.

PM₂.₅ alone costs about $172 billion (US) a year

The 76,000 deaths from fine particles carry an estimated cost of about $172 billion in 2024 US dollars, which is roughly 3.2 trillion pesos (at about 18.5 pesos to the dollar, the 2024 average). Nitrogen dioxide deaths add about $71 billion (around 1.3 trillion pesos), and ozone respiratory deaths about $57 billion (around 1.1 trillion pesos). The costs of childhood asthma and emergency room visits are real, but small next to the deaths.

These costs cannot simply be added together, because a single death can be linked to more than one pollutant, so adding all three counts some deaths twice.

Section 2 of 3 · The oil & gas sector

What oil and gas adds to the air

We can compare two versions of the model: one with oil and gas emissions and one without. The difference shows how much of the health burden comes from the sector.

The national average hides where oil and gas matters most

Spread across the whole country, oil and gas adds a small share to the national totals (about 1% for fine particles, but more than 6% for nitrogen dioxide). Even so, a national average is the wrong way to judge a local industry: its pollution is not spread evenly. It concentrates in the states where the wells, flares, and processing plants are. In the areas where its effect on the air is clear, oil and gas adds about 128 nitrogen dioxide deaths and about 116 fine-particle deaths a year.

+128 · +116extra NO₂ and PM₂.₅ deaths a year from oil & gas, where its effect on the air is clearest

In dollars, the sector adds about $553 million a year

In the areas where the sector’s effect on the air is clear, the health burden from oil and gas pollution is worth about $553 million a year (around 10 billion pesos), counting NO₂ and PM₂.₅ deaths and illness. What matters most is not the size of that number but where it falls: on the communities that live next to production, as the next section shows.

$553 million≈ 10 billion pesos · oil & gas health burden, affected areas (2024 USD)

Section 3 of 3 · Who lives with oil & gas pollution

Where the oil and gas burden falls

The oil and gas burden is local and geographic: it concentrates in the Gulf producing states, above all Veracruz and Tabasco, where the wells, flares, and processing plants are. It does not spread along a marginalization gradient.

64oil & gas NO₂ deaths in Veracruz, the highest of any state (7.6% of its NO₂ burden)

Indigenous households carry an above-average share

Beyond geography, there is a clear inequity: Indigenous households bear above-average PM₂.₅ oil and gas mortality, above the national average. Afro-Mexican communities sit at or below the average.

This is why the national average is misleading. Across the whole country, oil and gas can look like a small part of the problem. But for the communities that live next to production, especially in the Gulf states and for Indigenous households, it is a real and concentrated burden. Cutting these emissions would directly help those places.

Closing · Explore the data

Find your municipality

The story ends where the data becomes personal. Look up your own state or municipality, see the burden for each pollutant and outcome, compare it with the national picture, and download exactly what you are looking at.

Appendix · How we did this

Modeled 2024 concentrations of NO₂, O₃, and PM₂.₅ across Mexico (from a TROPOMI satellite flux-divergence model) are combined with established concentration-response functions and Mexican baseline health and population data to estimate how many deaths and cases are linked to each pollutant, nationally, by state, and for every municipality. The oil and gas contribution is the difference between a model run with and without the sector, restricted to municipalities where the signal is statistically significant. Ozone has no significant oil and gas areas, so it is reported as a total-burden endpoint only.