Health Risk Assessment Of Air Pollutants Research Articles

Choices of morbidity outcomes and concentration-response functions for health risk assessment of long-term exposure to air pollution.

Air pollution health risk assessment (HRA) has been typically conducted for all causes and cause-specific mortality based on concentration-response functions (CRFs) from meta-analyses that synthesize the evidence on air pollution health effects. There is a need for a similar systematic approach for HRA for morbidity outcomes, which have often been omitted from HRA of air pollution, thus underestimating the full air pollution burden. We aimed to compile from the existing systematic reviews and meta-analyses CRFs for the incidence of several diseases that could be applied in HRA. To achieve this goal, we have developed a comprehensive strategy for the appraisal of the systematic reviews and meta-analyses that examine the relationship between long-term exposure to particulate matter with an aerodynamic diameter smaller than 2.5 µm (PM2.5), nitrogen dioxide (NO2), or ozone (O3) and incidence of various diseases. To establish the basis for our evaluation, we considered the causality determinations provided by the US Environmental Protection Agency Integrated Science Assessment for PM2.5, NO2, and O3. We developed a list of pollutant/outcome pairs based on these assessments and the evidence of a causal relationship between air pollutants and specific health outcomes. We conducted a comprehensive literature search using two databases and identified 75 relevant systematic reviews and meta-analyses for PM2.5 and NO2. We found no relevant reviews for long-term exposure to ozone. We evaluated the reliability of these studies using an adaptation of the AMSTAR 2 tool, which assesses various characteristics of the reviews, such as literature search, data extraction, statistical analysis, and bias evaluation. The tool's adaptation focused on issues relevant to studies on the health effects of air pollution. Based on our assessment, we selected reviews that could be credible sources of CRF for HRA. We also assessed the confidence in the findings of the selected systematic reviews and meta-analyses as the sources of CRF for HRA. We developed specific criteria for the evaluation, considering factors such as the number of included studies, their geographical distribution, heterogeneity of study results, the statistical significance and precision of the pooled risk estimate in the meta-analysis, and consistency with more recent studies. Based on our assessment, we classified the outcomes into three lists: list A (a reliable quantification of health effects is possible in an HRA), list B+ (HRA is possible, but there is greater uncertainty around the reliability of the CRF compared to those included on list A), and list B- (HRA is not recommended because of the substantial uncertainty of the CRF). In our final evaluation, list A includes six CRFs for PM2.5 (asthma in children, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, ischemic heart disease events, stroke, hypertension, and lung cancer) and three outcomes for NO2 (asthma in children and in adults, and acute lower respiratory infections in children). Three additional outcomes (diabetes, dementia, and autism spectrum disorders) for PM2.5 were included in list B+. Recommended CRFs are related to the incidence (onset) of the diseases. The International Classification of Diseases, 10th revision codes, age ranges, and suggested concentration ranges are also specified to ensure consistency and applicability in an HRA. No specific suggestions were given for ozone because of the lack of relevant systematic reviews. The suggestions formulated in this study, including CRFs selected from the available systematic reviews, can assist in conducting reliable HRAs and contribute to evidence-based decision-making in public health and environmental policy. Future research should continue to update and refine these suggestions as new evidence becomes available and methodologies evolve.

Two Decades of Air Pollution Health Risk Assessment: Insights From the Use of WHO's AirQ and AirQ+ Tools.

We evaluated studies that used the World Health Organization's (WHO) AirQ and AirQ+ tools for air pollution (AP) health risk assessment (HRA) and provided best practice suggestions for future assessments. We performed a comprehensive review of studies using WHO's AirQ and AirQ+ tools, searching several databases for relevant articles, reports, and theses from inception to Dec 31, 2022. We identified 286 studies that met our criteria. The studies were conducted in 69 countries, with most (57%) in Iran, followed by Italy and India (∼8% each). We found that many studies inadequately report air pollution exposure data, its quality, and validity. The decisions concerning the analysed population size, health outcomes of interest, baseline incidence, concentration-response functions, relative risk values, and counterfactual values are often not justified, sufficiently. Many studies lack an uncertainty assessment. Our review found a number of common shortcomings in the published assessments. We suggest better practices and urge future studies to focus on the quality of input data, its reporting, and associated uncertainties.

Mining biomarkers from routine laboratory tests in clinical records associated with air pollution health risk assessment

Clinical laboratory in hospital can produce amounts of health data every day. The purpose of this study was to mine biomarkers from clinical laboratory big data associated with the air pollution health risk assessment using clinical records. 13, 045, 629 clinical records of all 27 routine laboratory tests in Changsha Central Hospital, including ALB, TBIL, ALT, DBIL, AST, TP, UREA, UA, CREA, GLU, CK, CKMB, LDL-C, TG, TC, HDL-C, CRP, WBC, Na, K, Ca, Cl, APTT, PT, FIB, TT, RBC and those daily air pollutants concentration monitoring data of Changsha, including PM2.5, PM10, SO2, NO2, CO, and O3 from 2014 to 2016, were retrieved. The moving average method was used to the biological reference interval was established. The tests results were converted into daily abnormal rate. After data cleaning, GAM statistical model construction and data analysis, a concentration-response relationship between air pollutants and daily abnormal rate of routine laboratory tests was observed. Our study found that PM2.5 had a stable association with TP (lag07), ALB (lag07), ALT (lag07), AST (lag07), TBIL (lag07), DBIL (lag07), UREA (lag07), CREA (lag07), UA (lag07), CK (lag 06), GLU (lag07), WBC (lag07), Cl (lag07) and Ca (lag07), (P < 0.05); O3 had a stable association with AST (lag01), CKMB (lag06), TG (lag07), TC (lag05), HDL-C (lag07), K (lag05) and RBC (lag07) (P < 0.05); CO had a stable association with UREA (lag07), Na (lag7) and PT (lag07) (P < 0.05); SO2 had a stable association with TP (lag07) and LDL-C (lag0) (P < 0.05); NO2 had a stable association with APTT (lag7) (P < 0.05). These results showed that different air pollutants affected different routine laboratory tests and presented different pedigrees. Therefore, biomarkers mined from routine laboratory tests may potentially be used to low-cost assess the health risks associated with air pollutants.

RISK OF AIR POLLUTION FROM INDUSTRIALIZATION TOWARDS HEALTH: A COMPARATIVE RISK ASSESSMENT

ABSTRACT Palm oil mills generate large quantities of waste and by-products which consequently cause air pollution. Previous studies had investigated about the exposures of different types of air pollution toward certain age groups such as children, as well as targeting specific diseases. In this article, the assessment on the posed risk of air pollution in Sepang, Malaysia palm oil mills toward health are being investigated. In particular, we study the particulate matter of PM2.5 and PM10, in which exposures toward these fine particles may cause toxic effects in blood and other illnesses such as cancer that may lead to mortality. Our aim is to estimate the number of premature deaths in Malaysia due to all causes of ambient air pollutants and avoidable mortality rate using the comparative risk assessment framework. We also quantified the relative risk and attributable fraction by adopting the framework of air pollution health-risk assessment. Our findings estimated that there would be around 5692 for PM10 and 9287 for PM2.5 premature deaths in Malaysia due to all causes of ambient air pollutants. However, with the decrease in 20% of the pollutant’s concentration, there would be an avoidable mortality of 18.75% or 1067 and 17.98% or 1670 due to PM10 and PM2.5, respectively. This model can be extended into more detail assessment of each contributing particles for air pollution, as well as to water pollution.

Air Pollution Health Risk Assessment (AP-HRA), Principles and Applications.

Air pollution is a major public health problem. A significant number of epidemiological studies have found a correlation between air quality and a wide variety of adverse health impacts emphasizing a considerable role of air pollution in the disease burden in the general population ranging from subclinical effects to premature death. Health risk assessment of air quality can play a key role at individual and global health promotion and disease prevention levels. The Air Pollution Health Risk Assessment (AP-HRA) forecasts the expected health effect of policies impacting air quality under the various policy, environmental and socio-economic circumstances, making it a key tool for guiding public policy decisions. This paper presents the concept of AP-HRA and offers an outline for the proper conducting of AP-HRA for different scenarios, explaining in broad terms how the health hazards of air emissions and their origins are measured and how air pollution-related impacts are quantified. In this paper, seven widely used AP-HRA tools will be deeply explored, taking into account their spatial resolution, technological factors, pollutants addressed, geographical scale, quantified health effects, method of classification, and operational characteristics. Finally, a comparative analysis of the proposed tools will be conducted, using the SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats) method.

Air pollution health risk assessment: the role of benzene

Abstract Benzene is an aromatic polycyclic hydrocarbon (C6H6) ubiquitously present in the environment which results from the emissions of fires and volcanoes. However, the primary source is anthropogenic, mainly from industrial emissions and combustion. The aim of this study is to summarize the current evidence on benzene exposure in the Italian regions and the main health effects. A retrospective observational study was conducted. Environmental data provided by ISPRA (Higher Institute for Environmental Protection and Research) relating to benzene pollution and the trend of national emissions of substance by region and sector of origin were analyzed. Data available to date (1990-2016) show a significant decrease, over 91%, mainly due to the reduction in the transport sector. In 2016, the main share of substance relates to road transport (1,492 t), followed by use of solvents (1,100 t), and production processes (463 t). Much lower are the emissions due to the extraction and distribution of fossil fuels/geothermal (19 t) and combustion in the energy and transformation industries (5 t). The highest absolute values in 2015 were recorded in the Italian regions of Lombardia (751.4 t), Lazio (367.2 t), and Puglia (339.0 t). The lower values were in Valle d'Aosta (7.9 t), Molise (15,5 t) and Basilicata (25,3 t). The largest decrease in benzene exposure between 1990 and 2015 was recorded in Campania (-94.5%), Calabria (-93.9%) and Valle d'Aosta (-93.4%). All Italian regions recorded a significant decrease in the absolute values of benzene emissions, mainly due to both the decrease of benzene in fuel composition during the 1990s and to the renewal of circulating cars equipped with energy saving systems (start and stop) and more optimized for low fuel consumption. The global reduction of energy sources based on fossil fuels, as well as a primary environmental objective to reduce Global Warming, would certainly constitute a way to decrease the impact of benzene on the environment. Key messages Additional efforts are needed to reduce energy sources based on fossil fuels. An information, training and health education policy through the environment aimed at implementing awareness and empowerment of the population would be desirable.

MicroRNA expression profiles and personal monitoring of exposure to particulate matter

An increasing number of findings from epidemiological studies support associations between exposure to air pollution and the onset of several diseases, including pulmonary, cardiovascular and neurodegenerative diseases, and malignancies. However, intermediate, and potentially mediating, biological mechanisms associated with exposure to air pollutants are largely unknown. Previous studies on the human exposome have shown that the expression of certain circulating microRNAs (miRNAs), regulators of gene expression, are altered upon exposure to traffic-related air pollutants. In the present study, we investigated the relationship between particulate matter (PM) smaller than 2.5 μm (PM2.5), PM2.5 absorbance (as a proxy of black carbon and soot), and ultrafine-particles (UFP, smaller than 0.1 μm), measured in healthy volunteers by 24 h personal monitoring (PEM) sessions and global expression levels of peripheral blood miRNAs. The PEM sessions were conducted in four European countries, namely Switzerland (Basel), United Kingdom (Norwich), Italy (Turin), and The Netherlands (Utrecht). miRNAs expression levels were analysed using microarray technology on blood samples from 143 participants. Seven miRNAs, hsa-miR-24-3p, hsa-miR-4454, hsa-miR-4763-3p, hsa-miR-425-5p, hsa-let-7d-5p, hsa-miR-502-5p, and hsa-miR-505-3p were significantly (FDR corrected) expressed in association with PM2.5 personal exposure, while no significant association was found between miRNA expression and the other pollutants. The results obtained from this investigation suggest that personal exposure to PM2.5 is associated with miRNA expression levels, showing the potential for these circulating miRNAs as novel biomarkers for air pollution health risk assessment.

Physical Activity, a Critical Exposure Factor of Environmental Pollution in Children and Adolescents Health Risk Assessment.

It is an extremely urgent problem that physical fitness promotion must face not only the increasing air pollution but also the decline of physical activity level of children and adolescents worldwide at present, which is the major reason that forms an inactive lifestyle and does harm to adolescents’ health. Thus, it is necessary to focus on the exposure factor in environmental health risk assessment (EHRA) which conducts supervision of environmental pollution and survey of adolescents’ activity patterns according to the harmful characteristics of air pollutant and relationship between dose and response. Some countries, such as USA, Canada and Australia, regard both respiratory rate and physical activity pattern as main exposure factors for adolescents in both air pollution health risk assessment and exercise risk assessment to forecast a safe exposing condition of pollutant for adolescents while they are doing exercise outdoors. In addition, it suggests that the testing indexes and testing methods of these two exposure factors, such as investigating the time of daily physical activity, strength, and characteristic of frequency, help to set up the quantitative relationship between environmental pollution index and the time, strength, frequency of daily activities, and formulate children’s and adolescents’ activity instructions under different levels of environmental pollutions. As smog becomes increasingly serious at present, it is meaningful to take physical activity as a critical composition of exposure factor and establish physical activity guideline, so as to reduce the risk of air pollution, and promote physical health of children and adolescents effectively.

Survey of Ambient Air Pollution Health Risk Assessment Tools.

Designing air quality policies that improve public health can benefit from information about air pollution health risks and impacts, which include respiratory and cardiovascular diseases and premature death. Several computer-based tools help automate air pollution health impact assessments and are being used for a variety of contexts. Expanding information gathered for a May 2014 World Health Organization expert meeting, we survey 12 multinational air pollution health impact assessment tools, categorize them according to key technical and operational characteristics, and identify limitations and challenges. Key characteristics include spatial resolution, pollutants and health effect outcomes evaluated, and method for characterizing population exposure, as well as tool format, accessibility, complexity, and degree of peer review and application in policy contexts. While many of the tools use common data sources for concentration-response associations, population, and baseline mortality rates, they vary in the exposure information source, format, and degree of technical complexity. We find that there is an important tradeoff between technical refinement and accessibility for a broad range of applications. Analysts should apply tools that provide the appropriate geographic scope, resolution, and maximum degree of technical rigor for the intended assessment, within resources constraints. A systematic intercomparison of the tools' inputs, assumptions, calculations, and results would be helpful to determine the appropriateness of each for different types of assessment. Future work would benefit from accounting for multiple uncertainty sources and integrating ambient air pollution health impact assessment tools with those addressing other related health risks (e.g., smoking, indoor pollution, climate change, vehicle accidents, physical activity).

Road-Related Air Pollution Health Risk Assessment and Economic Evaluation

60%~70% of air pollutants are vehicle emissions. With the soaring increasing of Vehicle Population, automobile exhaust is becoming the leading cause of air pollution. In this paper space-time variation rule of road-related atmospheric pollution is analyzed based on the characteristics of air pollution on the road. And the basic methods of road-related air pollution health risk assessment are determined in the analysis of the relationship of road-related air pollution and health. The economic evaluation of road-related air pollution is also made which would provide the methods for reference in the related research on road air pollution.

Air Pollution Health Risk Assessment in Ukraine: A Case Study of Zaporizhie

Air Pollution Health Risk Assessment in Ukraine: A Case Study of Zaporizhie

Inhalation Transfer Factors for Air Pollution Health Risk Assessment

ABSTRACT To facilitate routine health risk assessments, we develop the concept of an inhalation transfer factor (ITF). The ITF is defined as the pollutant mass inhaled by an exposed individual per unit pollutant mass emitted from an air pollution source. A cumulative population inhalation transfer factor (PITF) is also defined to describe the total fraction of an emitted pollutant inhaled by all members of the exposed population. In this paper, ITFs and PITFs are calculated for outdoor releases from area, point, and line sources, indoor releases in single zone and multizone indoor environments, and releases within motor vehicles. Typical PITFs for an urban area from emissions outdoors are ~10-6–10-3. PITFs associated with emissions in buildings or in moving vehicles are typically much higher, ~10-3–10-1.