Globally, the estimates suggest that there are 170 new cases of traffic pollution-related asthma per 100,000 children every year, and 13% of childhood asthma cases diagnosed each year are linked to traffic pollution. The country with the highest proportion of traffic pollution-attributable childhood asthma incidence was South Korea (31%), the UK ranked 24th out of 194 countries, the US 25th, China 19th, and India 58th.
Exposure to ambient air pollution increases morbidity and mortality, and is a leading contributor to global disease burden. We explored spatial and temporal trends in mortality and burden of disease attributable to ambient air pollution from 1990 to 2015 at global, regional, and country levels.
Exposure to ambient air pollution is a major risk factor for global disease. Assessment of the impacts of air pollution on population health and the evaluation of trends relative to other major risk factors requires regularly updated, accurate, spatially resolved exposure estimates.
Presentation by Professor Michael Brauer, University of British Colombia at Anil Agarwal Dialogue 2015: Poor in climate change,India Habitat Centre, New Delhi, March 11 – 12, 2015
Approximately 2.8 billion people cook with solid fuels. Research has focused on the health impacts of indoor exposure to fine particulate pollution. Here, for the 2010 Global Burden of Disease project (GBD 2010), we evaluate the impact of household cooking with solid fuels on regional population-weighted ambient PM2.5 pollution (APM2.5). The researchers estimated the proportion and concentrations of APM2.5 attributable to household cooking with solid fuels (PM2.5-cook) for the years 1990, 2005, and 2010 in 170 countries; and associated ill-health.
Genetics may partially explain observed heterogeneity in associations between traffic-related air pollution and incident asthma. The aim of the study was to investigate the impact of gene variants associated with oxidative stress and inflammation on associations between air pollution and incident childhood asthma.
Ambient air pollution is associated with numerous adverse health impacts. Previous assessments of global attributable disease burden have been limited to urban areas or by coarse spatial resolution of concentration estimates. Recent developments in remote sensing, global chemical-transport models, and improvements in coverage of surface measurements facilitate virtually complete spatially resolved global air pollutant concentration estimates.
The built environment affects public health in many ways (Frumkin et al. 2004), depending on the interplay between factors such as community design, travel patterns, physical activity, transportation safety, and air and water pollution.
