BACKGROUND Air pollution is one of the leading causes of mortality and morbidity worldwide. Experimental studies, and a few epidemiological studies, suggest that air pollution may cause acute exacerbation of psychiatric disorders, and even increase the rate of suicide attempts, but epidemiological studies on air pollution in association with psychiatric disorders are still few. Our aim was to i...

BACKGROUND Short-term exposure to air pollution has been associated with changes in blood pressure (BP) and emergency department visits for hypertension, but little is known about the effects of long-term exposure to traffic-related air pollution on BP and hypertension. OBJECTIVES We studied whether long-term exposure to air pollution is associated with BP and hypertension. METHODS In 1993-...

In recent years there has been a significant increase in the development and application of ever more sophisticated multi-dimensional models for solving the hydrodynamic and constituent transport equations which govern the flushing of pollution. However, advanced numerical modelling techniques can sometimes be augmented by alternative mathematical approaches which use simplified analytical solu...

BACKGROUND Atrial fibrillation is the most common sustained arrhythmia and is associated with cardiovascular morbidity and mortality. The few studies conducted on short-term effects of air pollution on episodes of atrial fibrillation indicate a positive association, though not consistently. OBJECTIVES The aim of this study was to evaluate the long-term impact of traffic-related air pollution ...

environmental economist with Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC). Ash and Fetter are joint co-authors. We thank Jim Boyce and John Stranlund for their invaluable guidance, and we are deeply grateful to Nick Bouwes and Steven Hassur of the Environmental Protection Agency who have painstakingly developed and graciously provided us with access to the Risk Screening Environmental ...

BACKGROUND There is relatively little evidence of health effects of long-term exposure to traffic-related pollution in susceptible populations. We investigated whether long-term exposure to traffic air and noise pollution was associated with all-cause mortality or hospital readmission for myocardial infarction (MI) among survivors of hospital admission for MI. METHODS Patients from the Myocar...

How bad is living in a city for asthma? Several investigations have indicated that individuals living in cities have a higher risk of suffering from asthma and allergies compared to those living in the countryside, this being due to several factors. Besides the fact that individual susceptibility varies between urban and rural settings, there are environmental factors that are typical of living...

BACKGROUND Traffic-related air pollution has been associated with adverse cardiorespiratory effects, including increased asthma prevalence. However, there has been little study of effects of traffic exposure at school on new-onset asthma. OBJECTIVES We evaluated the relationship of new-onset asthma with traffic-related pollution near homes and schools. METHODS Parent-reported physician diag...

OBJECTIVES To alleviate traffic congestion in Central London, the Mayor introduced the Congestion Charging Scheme (CCS) in February 2003. We modelled the impact of the CCS on levels of traffic pollutants, life expectancy and socioeconomic inequalities. METHODS Annual average NO(2) and PM(10) were modelled using an emission-dispersion model. We assumed the meteorology and vehicle fleet remaine...

BACKGROUND In epidemiological studies, small-scale spatial variation in air quality is estimated using land-use regression (LUR) and dispersion models. An important issue of exposure modeling is the predictive performance of the model at unmeasured locations. OBJECTIVE In this study, we aimed to evaluate the performance of two LUR models (large area and city specific) and a dispersion model i...