This article reviews the literature on health effects of air pollution, with a primary focus on time series studies but also covering prospective studies and case-crossover designs. It also covers some of the controversies created by these studies and concludes with a brief review of air pollution standards in the U.S.

As a huge threat to the public health, China's air pollution has attracted extensive attention and continues to grow in tandem with the economy. Although the real-time air quality report can be utilized to update our knowledge on air quality, questions about how pollutants evolve across time and how pollutants are spatially correlated still remain a puzzle. In view of this point, we adopt the P...

1. The Convention on Long-range Transboundary Air Pollution has delivered demonstrable improvements in reducing acidification of the environment, in reducing the highest peak levels of ozone and photochemical smog, and has begun to make improvements in atmospheric levels and deposition of nitrogen — one of the most important global environmental problems in addition to climate change. The Conve...

The National Research Council has pointed out that more ways need to be explored to link scientific research effectively with policy and environmental decision-making. One approach would be to promote interdisciplinary efforts designed to give science graduate students an opportunity to work in a collaborative effort, such as with economists and political scientists, to fulfill a project situat...

Air pollution is a significant problem in cities across the world. It affects human health and well-being, ecosystem health, crops, climate, visibility and human-made materials. Health effects related to air pollution include its impact on the pulmonary, cardiac, vascular and neurological systems (Section 2). Trees affect air quality through a number of means (Section 3) and can be used to impr...

A potential source of confounding in studies investigating the effect of indoor air pollution on child health is exposure to ambient air pollution. We investigate this relationship pairing city-level air pollution measures with child level data from the National Family Health Survey (2005-06) for six cities in India. We address simultaneity in child health outcomes and potential endogeneity of ...

Time series studies have provided strong evidence of an association between increased levels of ambient air pollution and increased hospitalizations, typically at a single lag of 0, 1, or 2 days after an air pollution episode. Two important scientific objectives are to better understand how the risk of hospitalization associated with a given day’s air pollution increase is distributed over mult...

Air pollution is a complex mixture of gases (e.g., ozone), particulate matter, and organic compounds present in outdoor and indoor air. Dogs exposed to severe air pollution exhibit chronic inflammation and acceleration of Alzheimer's-like pathology, suggesting that the brain is adversely affected by pollutants. We investigated whether residency in cities with high levels of air pollution is ass...

OBJECTIVE To investigate the effect of ambient air pollution on human health and the subsequent disability-adjusted life years (DALYs) lost in Shanghai. METHODS We used epidemiology-based exposure-response functions to calculate the attributable number of cases due to air pollution in Shanghai in 2000, and then we estimated the corresponding DALYs lost in Shanghai based on unit DALYs values o...

This paper aims to highlight the air pollution aspect in Calarasi county. To this end, we have identified key air pollutants from industry, road transport and agriculture during the past three years and registered at two automatic stations existing in the county at present. The air quality in Calarasi county is within the limits imposed by law. For reducing the existing pollution, measures must...