Long-term trends in mortality risk associated with short-term exposure to air pollution in 10 Japanese cities between 1977 and 2015

Short-term effects of air pollution on the infectious disease spectrum in Shanghai, China: a time-series analysis from 2013 to 2019

Background

Epidemiological evidence on the effects of air pollution on infectious diseases remains inconsistent, highlighting the need for further research and analysis. We aimed to investigate the relationship between exposure to fine particulate matter (PM2.5) and ozone (O3) and the risk of national notifiable infectious diseases in Shanghai, a megacity in China.

Methods

A double-pollutant model was used for each air pollutant, utilizing time-series analysis to separately apply single and distributed lag models (DLMs) to assess the exposure-lag-response relationship for 43 national notifiable infectious diseases (NNIDs) from 2013 to 2019. The model was adjusted for seasonality, long-term trends, mean temperature, relative humidity, and other air pollutants. Analysis was further conducted for seven NNID categories (vaccine-preventable; bacterial; gastrointestinal and enterovirus; sexually transmitted and bloodborne; vector-borne; zoonotic; and quarantinable diseases) as well as specific diseases.

Results

The study included 661,267 NNID cases and found that PM2.5 and O3 exposures were associated with increased NNID risks, although not within the same categories. A 10 μg/m3 increase in O3 was associated with a higher risk of total NNIDs (relative risk [RR] at lag 1 month: 1.29, 95% confidence interval [CI]: 1.02-1.65), vaccine-preventable diseases (RR at lag 1 month: 1.75, 95% CI: 1.02-3.01), and sexually transmitted and bloodborne diseases (RR at lag 2 month: 1.12, 95% CI: 1.00-1.26). However, the association with PM2.5 remained inconclusive.

Conclusion

These findings suggest a potential link between ambient air pollution exposure and the risk of infectious diseases, highlighting the urgent need for a comprehensive understanding of the relationship between air pollution and notifiable infectious diseases, as well as an in-depth evaluation of disparities across the disease spectrum.

Temporal variations in the short-term effects of ambient air pollution on cardiovascular and respiratory mortality: a pooled analysis of 380 urban areas over a 22-year period

BACKGROUND

Ambient air pollution, including particulate matter (such as PM10 and PM2·5) and nitrogen dioxide (NO2), has been linked to increases in mortality. Whether populations' vulnerability to these pollutants has changed over time is unclear, and studies on this topic do not include multicountry analysis. We evaluated whether changes in exposure to air pollutants were associated with changes in mortality effect estimates over time.

METHODS

We extracted cause-specific mortality and air pollution data collected between 1995 and 2016 from the Multi-Country Multi-City (MCC) Collaborative Research Network database. We applied a two-stage approach to analyse the short-term effects of NO2, PM10, and PM2·5 on cause-specific mortality using city-specific time series regression analyses and multilevel random-effects meta-analysis. We assessed changes over time using a longitudinal meta-regression with time as a linear fixed term and explored potential sources of heterogeneity and two-pollutant models.

FINDINGS

Over 21·6 million cardiovascular and 7·7 million respiratory deaths in 380 cities across 24 countries over the study period were included in the analysis. All three air pollutants showed decreasing concentrations over time. The pooled results suggested no significant temporal change in the effect estimates per unit exposure of PM10, PM2·5, or NO2 and mortality. However, the risk of cardiovascular mortality increased from 0·37% (95% CI -0·05 to 0·80) in 1998 to 0·85% (0·55 to 1·16) in 2012 with a 10 μg/m3 increase in PM2·5. Two-pollutant models generally showed similar results to single-pollutant models for PM fractions and indicated temporal differences for NO2.

INTERPRETATION

Although air pollution levels decreased during the study period, the effect sizes per unit increase in air pollution concentration have not changed. This observation might be due to the composition, toxicity, and sources of air pollution, as well as other factors, such as socioeconomic determinants or changes in population distribution and susceptibility.

FUNDING

None.

Peculiar weather patterns effects on air pollution and COVID-19 spread in Tokyo metropolis

As a pandemic hotspot in Japan, between March 1, 2020-October 1, 2022, Tokyo metropolis experienced seven COVID-19 waves. Motivated by the high rate of COVID-19 incidence and mortality during the seventh wave, and environmental/health challenges we conducted a time-series analysis to investigate the long-term interaction of air quality and climate variability with viral pandemic in Tokyo. Through daily time series geospatial and observational air pollution/climate data, and COVID-19 incidence and death cases, this study compared the environmental conditions during COVID-19 multiwaves. In spite of five State of Emergency (SOEs) restrictions associated with COVID-19 pandemic, during (2020-2022) period air quality recorded low improvements relative to (2015-2019) average annual values, namely: Aerosol Optical Depth increased by 9.13% in 2020 year, and declined by 6.64% in 2021, and 12.03% in 2022; particulate matter PM2.5 and PM10 decreased during 2020, 2021, and 2022 years by 10.22%, 62.26%, 0.39%, and respectively by 4.42%, 3.95%, 5.76%. For (2021-2022) period the average ratio of PM2.5/PM10 was (0.319 ± 0.1640), showing a higher contribution to aerosol loading of traffic-related coarse particles in comparison with fine particles. The highest rates of the daily recorded COVID-19 incidence and death cases in Tokyo during the seventh COVID-19 wave (1 July 2022-1 October 2022) may be attributed to accumulation near the ground of high levels of air pollutants and viral pathogens due to: 1) peculiar persistent atmospheric anticyclonic circulation with strong positive anomalies of geopotential height at 500 hPa; 2) lower levels of Planetary Boundary Layer (PBL) heights; 3) high daily maximum air temperature and land surface temperature due to the prolonged heat waves (HWs) in summer 2022; 4) no imposed restrictions. Such findings can guide public decision-makers to design proper strategies to curb pandemics under persistent stable anticyclonic weather conditions and summer HWs in large metropolitan areas.

The effect of research on COVID-19 and PM2.5 on the localization of humanitarian aid

The spatiotemporal variation of the death and tested positive cases is poorly understood during the respiratory coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. On the other hand, COVID-19's spread was not significantly slowed by pandemic maps. The aim of this study is to investigate the connection between COVID-19 distribution and airborne PM2.5 (particulate matter with an aerodynamic diameter less than 2.5 μm). Long-term exposure to high levels of PM2.5 is significantly connected to respiratory diseases in addition to being a potential carrier of viruses. Between April 2020 and March 2021, data on COVID-19-related cases were gathered for all prefectures in Japan. There were 9159, 109,078, and 451,913 cases of COVID-19 that resulted in death, severe illness, and positive tests, respectively. Additionally, we gathered information on PM2.5 from 1119 air quality monitoring stations that were deployed across the 47 prefectures. By using the statistical analysis tools in the Geographical Information System (GIS) software, it was found that the residents of prefectures with high PM2.5 concentrations were the most susceptible to COVID-19. Additionally, the World Health Organization-Air Quality Guidelines (WHO-AQG) relative risk (RR) of 1.04 (95% CI: 1.01-1.08), which was used to compute the PM2.5-caused deaths, was employed as well. Approximately 1716 (95% CI: 429-3,432) cases of PM2.5-related deaths were thought to have occurred throughout the study period. Despite the possibility that the actual numbers of both COVID19 and PM2.5-caused deaths are higher, humanitarian actors could use PM2.5 data to localize the efforts to minimize the spread of COVID-19.

Short-term associations of low-level fine particulate matter (PM2.5) with cardiorespiratory hospitalizations in 139 Japanese cities

There have been few studies in non-western countries on the relationship between low levels of daily fine particulate matter (PM_2.5) exposure and morbidity or mortality, and the impact of PM_2.5 concentrations below 15 μg/m³, which is the latest World Health Organization Air Quality Guideline (WHO AQG) value for the 24-h mean, is not yet clear. We assessed the associations between low-level PM_2.5 exposure and cardiorespiratory admissions in Japan. We collected the daily hospital admission count data, air pollutant data, and meteorological condition data recorded from April 2016 to March 2019 in 139 Japanese cities. City-specific estimates were obtained from conditional logistic regression models in a time-stratified case-crossover design and pooled by random-effect models. We estimated that every 10-μg/m³ increase in the concurrent-day PM_2.5 concentration was related to a 0.52% increase in cardiovascular admissions (95% CI: 0.13-0.92%) and a 1.74% increase in respiratory admissions (95% CI: 1.41-2.07%). These values were nearly the same when the datasets were filtered to contain only daily PM_2.5 concentrations <15 μg/m³. The exposure-response curves showed approximately sublinear-to-linear curves with no indication of thresholds. These associations with cardiovascular diseases weakened after adjusting for nitrogen dioxide or sulfur dioxide, but associations with respiratory diseases were almost unchanged when additionally adjusted for other pollutants. This study demonstrated that associations between daily PM_2.5 and daily cardiorespiratory hospitalizations might persist at low concentrations, including those below the latest WHO AQG value. Our findings suggest that the updated guideline value may still be insufficient from the perspective of public health.

Change in Air Quality during 2014-2021 in Jinan City in China and Its Influencing Factors

Air pollution affects climate change, food production, traffic safety, and human health. In this paper, we analyze the changes in air quality index (AQI) and concentrations of six air pollutants in Jinan during 2014-2021. The results indicate that the annual average concentrations of PM10, PM2.5, NO2, SO2, CO, and O3 and AQI values all declined year after year during 2014-2021. Compared with 2014, AQI in Jinan City fell by 27.3% in 2021. Air quality in the four seasons of 2021 was obviously better than that in 2014. PM2.5 concentration was the highest in winter and PM2.5 concentration was the lowest in summer, while it was the opposite for O3 concentration. AQI in Jinan during the COVID epoch in 2020 was remarkably lower compared with that during the same epoch in 2021. Nevertheless, air quality during the post-COVID epoch in 2020 conspicuously deteriorated compared with that in 2021. Socioeconomic elements were the main reasons for the changes in air quality. AQI in Jinan was majorly influenced by energy consumption per 10,000-yuan GDP (ECPGDP), SO2 emissions (SDE), NOx emissions (NOE), particulate emissions (PE), PM2.5, and PM10. Clean policies in Jinan City played a key role in improving air quality. Unfavorable meteorological conditions led to heavy pollution weather in the winter. These results could provide a scientific reference for the control of air pollution in Jinan City.