Air pollution

BACKGROUND: Pregnancy air pollution exposure (PAPE) has been linked to a wide range of adverse birth and childhood outcomes, but there is a paucity of data on its influence on the placental epigenome, which can regulate the programming of physiological functions and affect child development. This study aimed to investigate the association between prenatal air pollutant exposure concentrations and changes in placental DNA methylation patterns, and to explore the potential windows of susceptibility and sex-specific alterations...

Fertilizer-intensive agriculture leads to emissions of reactive nitrogen (Nr), posing threats to climate via nitrous oxide (N2 O) and to air quality and human health via nitric oxide (NO) and ammonia (NH3 ) that form ozone and particulate matter (PM) downwind. Adding nitrification inhibitors (NIs) to fertilizers can mitigate N2 O and NO emissions but may stimulate NH3 emissions. Quantifying the net effects of these trade-offs requires spatially resolving changes in emissions and associated impacts. We introduce an assessment framework to quantify such trade-off effects...

Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) are a class of toxic manufactured chemicals in commercial and consumer products. They are resistant to environmental degradation and mobile in soil, air, and water. This study used the introduced bivalve Corbicula fluminea as a passive biomonitor at sampling locations in a primary drinking water source in Virginia, USA. Many potential PFAS sources were identified in the region. Perfluorohexane sulfonate (PFHxS) and 6:2 fluorotelomer sulfonic acid (6:2 FTS) levels were highest downstream of an airport...

Living conditions are an important modifier of individual health outcomes and may lead to higher allostatic load (AL). However, housing-induced cardiovascular and immune effects contributing to altered environmental responsiveness remain understudied. This investigation was conducted to examine the influence of enriched (EH) versus depleted housing (DH) conditions on cardiopulmonary functions, systemic immune responses, and allostatic load in response to a single wildfire smoke (WS) exposure in mice. Male and female C57BL/6J mice were divided into EH or DH for 22 weeks, and cardiopulmonary assessments measured before and after exposures to either one-hr filtered air (FA) or flaming eucalyptus WS exposure...

The pressing issue of atmospheric pollution has prompted the exploration of affordable methods for measuring and monitoring air contaminants as complementary techniques to standard methods, able to produce high-density data in time and space. The main challenge of this low-cost approach regards the in-field accuracy and reliability of the sensors. This study presents the development of low-cost stations for high-time resolution measurements of CO2 and CH4 concentrations calibrated via an in-field machine learning-based method...

BACKGROUND: Long-term exposure to PM2.5 has been linked to increased mortality risk. However, limited studies have examined the potential modifying effect of community-level characteristics on this association, particularly in Asian contexts. This study aimed to estimate the effects of long-term exposure to PM2.5 on mortality in South Korea and to examine whether community-level deprivation, medical infrastructure, and greenness modify these associations. METHODS: We conducted a nationwide cohort study using the National Health Insurance Service-National Sample Cohort...

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Adıyaman, a city recently affected by an earthquake, is facing significant air pollution challenges due to both anthropogenic activities and natural events. The sources of air pollution have been investigated using meteorological variables. Elevated southerly winds, especially prominent in spring and autumn, significantly contribute to dust transport, leading to a decline in local air quality as detected by the HYSPLIT model. Furthermore, using Suomi-NPP Thermal Anomaly satellite product, it is detected and analyzed for crop burning activities...

As an innovative financial instrument, green credit is a new driving force for environmental governance. To study the impact of green credit on environmental quality, this paper uses the provincial panel data from 2007 to 2020 to construct a panel model for analysis based on the comprehensive environmental quality index. At the same time, it discusses the mechanism and regional heterogeneity of green credit affecting environmental quality. The results show that green credit significantly improves the overall quality of the environment, which has a significant effect on air quality and green quality but has no significant impact on water quality and soil quality...

OBJECTIVES: Incomplete combustion of solid fuel and exposure to secondhand smoke (SHS) are the primary causes of indoor air pollution (IAP), potentially leading to detrimental effects on individual mental health. However, current evidence regarding the association between IAP and depression remains inconclusive. This study aims to systematically investigate the evidence regarding the association between IAP and the risk of depression. DESIGN: Systematic review and meta-analysis of cohort studies...

OBJECTIVES: Climate change is a major global issue with significant consequences, including effects on air quality and human well-being. This review investigated the projection of non-communicable diseases (NCDs) attributable to air pollution under different climate change scenarios. DESIGN: This systematic review was conducted according to the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses 2020 flow checklist. A population-exposure-outcome framework was established...

Despite global concerns about metal(loid)s in atmospheric particulate matter (PM), the presence of metal(loid) resistance genes (MRGs) in PM remains unknown. Therefore, we conducted a comprehensive investigation of the metal(loid)s and associated MRGs in PMs in two seasons (summer and winter) in Xiamen, China. According to the geoaccumulation index (Igeo ), most metal(loid)s, except for V and Mn, exhibited enrichment in PM, suggesting potential anthropogenic sources. By employing Positive matrix factorization (PMF) model, utilizing a dataset encompassing both total and bioaccessible metal(loid)s, along with backward trajectory simulations, traffic emissions were determined to be the primary potential contributor of metal(loid)s in summer, whereas coal combustion was observed to have a dominant contribution in winter...

Ozone pollution presents a growing air quality threat in urban agglomerations in China. It remains challenge to distinguish the roles of emissions of precursors, chemical production and transportations in shaping the ground-level ozone trends, largely due to complicated interactions among these 3 major processes. This study elucidates the formation factors of ozone pollution and categorizes them into local emissions (anthropogenic and biogenic emissions), transport (precursor transport and direct transport from various regions), and meteorology...

Air pollutants deteriorate the survival environment and endanger human health around the world. A large number of studies have confirmed that air pollution jeopardizes multiple organs, such as the cardiovascular, respiratory, and central nervous systems. Skin is the largest organ and the first barrier that protects us from the outside world. Air pollutants such as particulate matter (PM), polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), volatile organic compounds (VOCs) will affect the structure and function of the skin and bring about the development of inflammatory skin diseases (atopic dermatitis (AD), psoriasis), skin accessory diseases (acne, alopecia), auto-immune skin diseases (cutaneous lupus erythematosus(CLE) scleroderma), and even skin tumors (melanoma, basal cell carcinoma (BCC), squamous-cell carcinoma (SCC))...

BACKGROUND: The new round of WHO/ILO Joint Estimates of the Work-related Burden of Disease assessment requires futher research to provide more evidence, especially on the health impact of ambient air pollution around the workplace. However, the evidence linking obstructive ventilatory dysfunction (OVD) to fine particulate matter (PM2.5 ) and its chemical components in workers is very limited. Evidence is even more scarce on the interactive effects between occupational factors and particle exposures...

Advanced thermochemical technologies for plastic waste valorization represent an interesting alternative to waste-to-energy options. They are particularly appealing for waste-to-hydrogen and waste-to-chemicals applications, with autothermal steam-oxygen gasification in fluidized bed reactors showing the greatest market potential. The study describes a series of experimental tests carried out on a large pilot-scale fluidized bed gasifier, using steam and O2 -enriched air, with increasing fractions of oxygen...

Particulate matter with an aerodynamic diameter of less than 1 μm (PM1.0 ) can be extremely hazardous to human health, so it is imperative to accurately estimate the spatial and temporal distribution of PM1.0 and analyze the impact of related policies on it. In this study, a stacking generalization model was trained based on aerosol optical depth (AOD) data from satellite observations, combined with related data affecting aerosol concentration such as meteorological data and geographic data. Using this model, the PM1...

The long-term joint impacts of fine particulate matter (PM2.5 ), nitrogen dioxide (NO2 ), and ozone (O3 ) on mortality are inconclusive. To bridge this research gap, we included 283,568 adults from the Taiwan MJ cohort between 2005 and 2016 and linked with the mortality data until 31 May 2019. Participants' annual average exposures to PM2.5 , NO2 , and O3 were estimated using satellite-based spatial-temporal models. We applied elastic net-regularised Cox models to construct a weighted environmental risk score (WERS) for the joint effects of three pollutants on non-accidental, cardiovascular, and cancer mortality and evaluated the contribution of each pollutant...

Research on the association between maternal PM2.5 exposure and hypospadias risk in male offspring, particularly in highly polluted areas, has been limited and inconsistent. This study leveraged data from China's National Population-based Birth Defects Surveillance System spanning the years 2013 to 2019, and employed sophisticated machine learning models to estimate daily PM2.5 levels and other pollutants for mothers at a 1-km resolution and a 6-km buffer surrounding maternal residences. Multivariate logistic regression analyses were performed to evaluate the relationship between PM2...

In many regions of the world, the relationship between ambient temperature and mortality is well-documented, but little is known about Cyprus, a Mediterranean island country where climate change is progressing faster than the global average. We Examined the association between daily ambient temperature and all-cause mortality risk in Cyprus. We conducted a time-series analysis with quasipoisson distribution and distributed lag non-linear models to investigate the association between temperature and all-cause mortality from 1 January 2004 to 31 December 2019 in five districts in Cyprus...