Health Effects Of Ambient Air Pollution Research Articles

Assessing capabilities of conducted ambient air pollution health effects studies in 22 Eastern Mediterranean countries to adopt air quality standards: a review.

The Eastern Mediterranean Region (EMR) countries suffer from exposure to high levels of ambient air pollutants due to dust storms and have unique climatic as well as topographic and socio-economic conditions which lead to adverse health effects on humans. The purpose of the review was to evaluate the quantity and quality of published articles on air pollution and health-based studies in 22 EMR countries to determine if they can be applied to adopting air quality standards. We designed a review based on a broad search of the literature in the Scopus, PubMed, and web of science (WOS) databases published from January 1, 2000, to January 2, 2022, using combinations of the following relevant terms: air pollution, health, and EMR countries. The generic eligibility criteria for this review were based on the population, exposure, comparator, outcome, and study design (PECOS) statement. The search results showed that following the PRISMA approach, of 2947 identified articles, 353 studies were included in this review. The analysis of the types of studies showed that about 70% of the studies conducted in EMR countries were Health Burden Estimation studies (31%), Ecological and time trend ecological studies (23%), and cross-sectional studies (16%). Also, researchers from Iran participated in the most published relevant studies in the region 255 (~ 63%) and just 10 published documents met all the PECOS criteria. The lack of sufficient studies which can meet the PECOS appraising criteria and the lack of professionals in this field are some of the issues that make it impossible to use as potential documents in the WHO future studies and adopt air quality standards. The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s40201-023-00862-1.

Modification of the acute respiratory effects of ambient air pollution by ambient temperature

Introduction: Ambient air pollution health effects may not be uniform across ambient temperatures due to differences in pollutant mixtures, physiologic processes, and exposure patterns. We investigated whether risk ratios for air pollutant concentrations and acute respiratory disease varied by temperature in four US cities. Methods: Using data from Atlanta (2002-2008), Birmingham (2002-2008), Dallas (2006-2008) and St. Louis (2002-2007), we estimated temperature-specific associations between five ambient air pollutants (ozone, nitrogen dioxide, fine particulate matter (PM2.5), PM2.5 organic and elemental carbon) and emergency department (ED) visits among people of all ages for asthma (n=425,064 ED visits) and upper respiratory infection (URI; n=1,309,025 ED visits). For each city, daily average temperature was assigned using central monitors and daily pollutant concentrations were estimated by population-weighting concentrations from a fused monitoring-Community Multiscale Air Quality model. In city-specific Poisson generalized linear models we modeled interaction between 3-day moving average temperature and 3-day moving average pollutant concentrations in relation to respiratory ED counts using product terms between pollution and smooth functions of temperature. Results: We generally observed higher estimated risk ratios for air pollution and respiratory ED visits when ambient temperatures were in the 15-25° Celsius range compared to colder or warmer temperatures. For example, the risk ratio for URI for a 2 µg/m3 increase in PM2.5 organic carbon in Atlanta was 1.05 (95%CI=1.03-1.07) at 20° Celsius and 1.00 (95%CI=0.98-1.01) at 10° Celsius. Conclusions: Results suggest that relationships of ambient air pollution and acute respiratory outcomes vary by outdoor temperatures. We speculate that higher risk ratios observed during comfortable temperatures reflect higher exposure to ambient pollution via increased time spent outdoors and/or higher air exchange rates.

Method for Fusing Observational Data and Chemical Transport Model Simulations To Estimate Spatiotemporally Resolved Ambient Air Pollution.

Investigations of ambient air pollution health effects rely on complete and accurate spatiotemporal air pollutant estimates. Three methods are developed for fusing ambient monitor measurements and 12 km resolution chemical transport model (CMAQ) simulations to estimate daily air pollutant concentrations across Georgia. Temporal variance is determined by observations in one method, with the annual mean CMAQ field providing spatial structure. A second method involves scaling daily CMAQ simulated fields using mean observations to reduce bias. Finally, a weighted average of these results based on prediction of temporal variance provides optimized daily estimates for each 12 × 12 km grid. These methods were applied to daily metrics of 12 pollutants (CO, NO2, NOx, O3, SO2, PM10, PM2.5, and five PM2.5 components) over the state of Georgia for a seven-year period (2002-2008). Cross-validation demonstrates a wide range in optimized model performance across pollutants, with SO2 predicted most poorly due to limitations in coal combustion plume monitoring and modeling. For the other pollutants studied, 54-88% of the spatiotemporal variance (Pearson R(2) from cross-validation) was captured, with ozone and PM2.5 predicted best. The optimized fusion approach developed provides daily spatial field estimates of air pollutant concentrations and uncertainties that are consistent with observations, emissions, and meteorology.

Effects of ambient air pollution on functional status in patients with chronic congestive heart failure: a repeated-measures study

BackgroundStudies using administrative data report a positive association between ambient air pollution and the risk of hospitalization for congestive heart failure (HF). Circulating levels of B-type natriuretic peptide (BNP) are directly associated with cardiac hemodynamics and symptom severity in patients with HF and, therefore, serves as a marker of functional status. We tested the hypothesis that BNP levels would be positively associated with short-term changes in ambient pollution levels among 28 patients with chronic stable HF and impaired systolic function.MethodsBNP was measured in whole blood at 0, 6, and 12 weeks. We used linear mixed models to evaluate the association between fine particulate matter (PM2.5), carbon monoxide, sulfur dioxide, nitrogen dioxide, ozone, and black carbon and log(BNP). Lags of 0 to 3 days were considered in separate models. We calculated the intraclass correlation coefficient and within-subject coefficient of variation as measures of reproducibility.ResultsWe found no association between any pollutant and measures of BNP at any lag. For example, a 10 μg/m3 increase in PM2.5 was associated with a 0.8% (95% CI: -16.4, 21.5; p = 0.94) increase in BNP on the same day. The within-subject coefficient of variation was 45% on the natural scale and 9% on the log scale.ConclusionThese results suggest that serial BNP measurements are unlikely to be useful in a longitudinal study of air pollution-related acute health effects. The magnitude of expected ambient air pollution health effects appears small in relation to the considerable within-person variability in BNP levels in this population.