Health Effects of Air Pollution and Air Temperature

Abstract

The aim of environmental epidemiology is to detect a possible risk or to investigate the exposure-response relation with time, duration, location and amount of exposure being the major determinants for that relationship. The assessment of health effects in environmental epidemiology can for example be done by using routine data such as emergency room visits or death certificates. It is very well known that the health of a population is very dependent on a stable and functioning ecosystem. Air as well as climate has a major impact on the function and procedures within the ecosystem. In industrial countries on the other hand, millions of people live in urban areas with elevated levels of air pollution due to burning fossil fuels for energy and transportation in industrial processes or traffic. Although successful efforts for emission control have been undertaken in the developed world, there is existing epidemiological evidence that air pollution remains a health risk even under current regulations. Rapid expansion of industry, increased automobile and truck traffic and high demands for powering homes, especially in large urban areas (megacities), result in severe air pollution problems. A. In his review Nayha (2002) estimates a 4% increase in coronary heart disease event rate with a 1C temperature increase above a temperature of 25C, which means that deaths related to hot weather cannot only occur during heat waves. During the heat wave of 2003, up to 70,000 excess deaths (Robine et al. 2008) were estimated all over Europe, particularly in France. Heat wave effects occur after a very short time lag (same day or 1 day lag) (Basu and Samet 2002) and are not only pronounced in cardiovascular but also in respiratory mortality (Hajat et al. 2002). The effects are often modified by age, disease status, gender, socio-economic status, behavior, air condition, and prevention measures. Sometimes mortality displacement is observed and after a short increase in mortality a following compensatory decline in the number of deaths occurs a few days later. However, this only explains a small percentage of the observed increase in mortality during heat episodes (Le Tertre et al. 2006).