#pm2.5

COVID-19 #PM2.5
A national study on long-term exposure to #air #pollution and #COVID-19 mortality in the United States
▻https://projects.iq.harvard.edu/covid-pm/home

Conclusions: A small increase in long-term exposure to PM2.5 leads to a large increase in COVID-19 death rate, with the magnitude of increase 20 times that observed for PM2.5 and all-cause mortality. The study results underscore the importance of continuing to enforce existing air pollution regulations to protect human health both during and after the COVID-19 crisis.

#mortalité #santé

Exposure to #air #pollution is linked to an increase in violent #crime - Daily chart
▻https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2019/10/09/exposure-to-air-pollution-is-linked-to-an-increase-in-violent-crime

https://www.economist.com/sites/default/files/images/2019/10/articles/main/20191012_woc871.png

This is not the first time researchers have identified a relationship between pollution and crime. In the 1970s America banned lead-based paint and began phasing out leaded petrol; two decades later, crime fell. Many researchers now argue that the two developments were linked. In a paper published in 2007, Jessica Wolpaw Reyes, an economist at Amherst College, estimated that the drop in lead exposure experienced by American children in the 1970s and 1980s may explain over half of the decline in violent crime in the 1990s.

The findings of Mr Burkhardt and his co-authors suggest that cleaner air could reduce violent crime still further. The benefits would be substantial. The authors estimate that a 10% reduction in daily #PM2.5 and #ozone exposure could save America $1.4bn a year through reduced assaults (the savings range from the cost of the immediate police response to lost productivity due to injuries).

The Polluted Brain
▻http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2017/01/brain-pollution-evidence-builds-dirty-air-causes-alzheimer-s-dementia

The link between air pollution and dementia remains controversial—even its proponents warn that more research is needed to confirm a causal connection and work out just how the particles might enter the brain and make mischief there. But a growing number of epidemiological studies from around the world, new findings from animal models and human brain imaging studies, and increasingly sophisticated techniques for modeling #PM2.5 exposures have raised alarms. Indeed, in an 11-year epidemiological study to be published next week in Translational Psychiatry, USC researchers will report that living in places with PM2.5 exposures higher than the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA’s) standard of 12 µg/m3 nearly doubled dementia risk in older women. If the finding holds up in the general population, air pollution could account for roughly 21% of dementia cases worldwide, says the study’s senior author, epidemiologist Jiu-Chiuan Chen of the Keck School of Medicine at USC.

Deepening the concerns, this month researchers at the University of Toronto in Canada reported in The Lancet that among 6.6 million people in the province of Ontario, those living within 50 meters of a major road—where levels of fine pollutants are often 10 times higher than just 150 meters away—were 12% more likely to develop dementia than people living more than 200 meters away.

#pollution #air #cerveau #démence #santé

Beijing Air Quality : Statistical analysis using R
▻http://www.garethkennedy.net/AQIStats.html

Beijing is known for being one of the most polluted cities on Earth. Often the government clamps down on private vehicles or barbecues in an attempt to control the air quality. However the effectiveness of these measures depends on the source of the pollution, in particular of particles smaller than 2.5 microns. These particles are the major cause of pollution related health issues in humans (e.g. here) and are mostly produced by combustion processes.

The concentration of these small particles is measured by the PM 2.5 index which will be examined here using hourly data from 2008 as measured by the US Embassy in Beijing (available here). To determine the origin of the pollution and examine how the city is cleaned the weather data (available here) for the same time period is examined. The statistical analysis is conducted using a self-written R code which is available here.

http://www.garethkennedy.net/AQIStats/AQICompass.png

Since both the slope and coefficient of determination are useful in examining the effect of the wind on the PM 2.5 pollution level then both of these were combined into a single plot (right). The colour being set by the slope with green being maximum (negative) slope and red being close to zero slope (so no effect of increasing wind speed on decreasing pollution). The transparency (visible as how pale each colour is) shows the coefficient of determination, with wind directions with no correlation to pollution appearing as close to white.

From this figure wind from the NNE direction is the most efficient at cleaning Beijing of PM 2.5, but any wind from the W to the NE direction can also clean the city. The strongest individual cleaning events are from the NW where the wind is the strongest (see above).

#PM2.5 #Beijing #pollution

Les États membres craignent de froisser l’industrie automobile – EurActiv.fr
▻http://www.euractiv.fr/section/transport/news/eu-stalls-pledge-to-carry-out-independent-checks-on-car-emissions

http://www.euractiv.fr/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2016/11/shutterstock_322601447-800x534.jpg

Les États membres enterrent la mise en place d’un système de vérifications indépendant pour les émissions des véhicules, selon des documents obtenus par notre partenaire, The Guardian.