Recently, attention has focused on whether particulate air pollution is a specific trigger of myocardial infarction (MI). The results of several studies of single locations assessing the effects of ambient particular matter on the risk of MI have been disparate. We used a multicity case-crossover study to examine risk of emergency hospitalization associated with fine particulate matter (PM) wit...

Recently, much attention has been devoted to urban air pollution because epidemiological studies have reported health impacts related to particulate matter (PM). PM10 and PM2.5 were collected during different seasons in Torino, a northern Italian city, and were characterised by inorganic chemical species (secondary particulates and bio-available iron). The biological effects of aqueous and orga...

BACKGROUND Radical regulations to improve air quality, including traffic control, were implemented prior to and during the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games. Consequently, ambient concentrations of nitrogen dioxide (NO2) and particular matter 10 micrometers or less (PM10), were reduced in a distinct and short window of time, which presented a natural experiment for testing the relationships between ma...

It has been reported that the particulate matter under 10 microm (PM10) has deleterious effects on respiratory health. The purpose of this study was to assess the influence of PM10 upon normal children's lung function. The subjects were 368 middle school students in two areas of Incheon Metropolitan City. One (Incheon) is in the central city and the other (Ganghwa) is in the suburbs. Air pollut...

OBJECTIVE To evaluate the predictive efficiency of two statistical models (one parametric and the other non-parametric) to predict critical episodes of air pollution exceeding daily air quality standards in Santiago, Chile by using the next day PM10 maximum 24h value. Accurate prediction of such episodes would allow restrictive measures to be applied by health authorities to reduce their seriou...

OBJECTIVES To investigate the sources of high concentrations of particles of < 10 microns diameter (PM10) in classrooms, observed in a previous study on childhood exposure to PM10, and to study the correlation between classroom and outdoor concentrations of mass and elements of PM10. METHODS Measurements of PM10 were conducted in two schools and outdoors in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. Averagi...

BACKGROUND Air pollution in Darwin, Northern Australia, is dominated by smoke from seasonal fires in the surrounding savanna that burn during the dry season from April to November. Our aim was to study the association between particulate matter less than or equal to 10 microns diameter (PM10) and daily emergency hospital admissions for cardio-respiratory diseases for each fire season from 1996 ...

Continuous and simultaneous observational particulate matter (measured as PM10), nitrogen dioxide (NO2) and oxides of nitrogen (NOx) data were captured at a kerbside site alongside a major highway in Auckland, New Zealand, and at a pair of setback sites within 250 m of the highway, day and night over 8 weeks. The three measurement sites were intended to allow emissions from the highway to be la...

BACKGROUND Exposure to air pollution has been associated with higher C-reactive protein (CRP) levels, suggesting an inflammatory response. Not much is known about this association in pregnancy. OBJECTIVES We investigated the associations of air pollution exposure during pregnancy with maternal and fetal CRP levels in a population-based cohort study in the Netherlands. METHODS Particulate ma...