Abstract
Long-term exposure to ambient air pollutant concentrations is known to cause chronic lung inflammation, a condition that may promote increased severity of COVID-19 syndrome caused by the novel coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2). In this paper, we empirically investigate the ecologic association between long-term concentrations of area-level fine particulate matter (PM2.5) and excess deaths in the first quarter of 2020 in municipalities of Northern Italy. The study accounts for potentially spatial confounding factors related to urbanization that may have influenced the spreading of SARS-CoV-2 and related COVID-19 mortality. Our epidemiological analysis uses geographical information (e.g., municipalities) and negative binomial regression to assess whether both ambient PM2.5 concentration and excess mortality have a similar spatial distribution. Our analysis suggests a positive association of ambient PM2.5 concentration on excess mortality in Northern Italy related to the COVID-19 epidemic. Our estimates suggest that a one-unit increase in PM2.5 concentration (µg/m3) is associated with a 9% (95% confidence interval: 6–12%) increase in COVID-19 related mortality.
Highlights
With more than twelve million confirmed COVID-19 cases and more than 550 thousand related deaths globally as of the beginning of July 2020,1 the novel coronavirus pandemic has unquestionably caused dramatic health and economic impacts
In our study we use a spatial interpolation method from ground-level monitoring data, whereas these other two studies utilize PM2.5 gridded surfaces such as chemical transport modelling in the case of Cole et al and a hybrid approach using chemical transport, aerosol optical depth and land use regression modelling in the case of Wu et al With respect to COVID-19 mortality data, Wu et al use county-level data from the Johns Hopkins University, Center for Systems Science and Engineering Coronavirus Resource Center, which is comprised of COVID-19 deaths tabulated by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and State health departments
Is among the countries most severely affected by the new coronavirus, with more than 230 thousand confirmed cases and more than 30 thousand deaths as of the end of May
Summary
With more than twelve million confirmed COVID-19 cases and more than 550 thousand related deaths globally as of the beginning of July 2020,1 the novel coronavirus pandemic has unquestionably caused dramatic health and economic impacts. Complicated by the public health interventions and the emergency status, reveal a strong spatial clustering phenomenon across administrative regions in Italy and provinces and municipalities within each region Such a geographical concentration of both COVID-19 morbidity and mortality is most likely the result of the interaction of multiple factors, among which include the clustering of initially infected individuals, different choices made about testing and contact tracing in order to identify community transmission, underlying population demographic and prevalence of health status, and the timely adoption of lockdown measures to control the COVID-19 epidemic (Ciminelli and Garcia-mandicó 2020). The Northern Italian regions most affected by the spreading of coronavirus (Lombardia, Veneto, Piemonte, Emilia Romagna) are the most densely populated and heavily industrialized and thereby the most heavily polluted regions of Italy These four regions together host 39% of the national population, and approximately one-half of the Italian GDP is produced there. The second is the location in the orographic “bowl” of the Po
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