BACKGROUND Given the importance of physical activity to well-being, there is a need to encourage people to be physically active year-round. At the same time, many people are vulnerable to adverse health effects from air pollution, especially on smog alert days. This study was undertaken to determine when air pollution levels tend to be lowest so that the public can modify strenuous outdoor acti...

Current pollution monitoring systems use small numbers of fixed sensors that report multiple species of pollutant. In the UK, online archives of such monitoring sites go back over 30 years. Such archives give a detailed picture of trends in pollution and characteristics of specific pollutants such as average levels at different time-scales. However pollution levels can vary at a small scale. Fo...

The natural nighttime light environment of the earth has been significantly transformed by human activities. Such “light pollution” has a profound influence on ecosystems. Protected areas (PAs) play key ecological functions and are only effective at low light pollution levels or without any light pollution. In China, with rapid population growth and high urbanization rates, light pollution in P...

OBJECTIVES Air pollution exposure induces cardiovascular effects, possibly via systemic inflammation and coagulation misbalance. Genetic variation may determine individual susceptibility. Our aim was to investigate effect modification by inflammation (Interleukin6 (IL6), tumour necrosis factor-α (TNF-α)) and coagulation (fibrinogen Bβ, plasminogen activator inhibitor-1 (PAI-1)) gene variants on...

Smoke from bushfires is an emerging issue for fire managers because of increasing evidence for its public health effects. Development of forecasting models to predict future pollution levels based on the relationship between bushfire activity and current pollution levels would be a useful management tool. As a first step, we use daily thermal anomalies detected by the MODIS Active Fire Product ...

This chapter describes how estimates of air pollution emissions are transformed into ambient concentration of pollution, further translated into exposure and health impacts on a population, and finally expressed in damages. Different trade and environmental policy menus lead to different levels of pollution emissions and income. For each menu the emissions levels translate into specific mortali...

  Background: Educational centers have higher standards for controlling noise pollution as it has been shown that noise pollution is a major cause of discomfort for teachers and students. Noise pollution reduces concentration, interferes in the conversation, and leads to dropouts and lower grades especially in mathematics. The present study aimed to evaluate noise pollution in the schools ...

This study quantifies the effects of stressful weather and elevated air pollution levels on cause-specific mortality in Santiago, Chile, during the austral winters from 1988 to 1996. A temporal synoptic index (TSI) is used to form weather classes and air pollution classes. Prior applications of the TSI have formed classes solely on the basis of weather and may have systematically underestimated...

BACKGROUND Adverse respiratory effects of particulate air pollution have been identified by epidemiological studies. We aimed to examine the health effects of ambient particulate air pollution from wood burning on school-age students in Christchurch, New Zealand, and to explore the utility of urine and exhaled breath condensate biomarkers of exposure in this population. METHODS A panel study ...