The outbreaks of the severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) epidemic in 2003 resulted in unprecedented impacts on people's daily life. One of the most significant impacts to people is the fear of contacting the SARS virus while engaging daily routine activity. Here we use data from daily underground ridership in Taipei City and daily reported new SARS cases in Taiwan to model the dynamics of the public fear of the SARS virus during the wax and wane of the SARS period. We found that for each reported new SARS case there is an immediate loss of about 1200 underground ridership (the fresh fear). These daily loss rates dissipate to the following days with an e-folding time of about 28 days, reflecting the public perception on the risk of contacting SARS virus when traveling with the underground system (the residual fear). About 50% of daily ridership was lost during the peak of the 2003 SARS period, compared with the loss of 80% daily ridership during the closure of the underground system after Typhoon Nari, the loss of 50–70% ridership due to the closure of the governmental offices and schools during typhoon periods, and the loss of 60% daily ridership during Chinese New Year holidays.

In this work we used daily outpatient data from the Landseed Hospital in a heavily industrial area in northern Taiwan to study the associations between daily outpatient visits and air pollution in the context of a heavily polluted atmospheric environment in Chung-Li area during the period 2007–2011. We test the normality of each data set, control for the confounding factors, and calculate correlation coefficient between the outpatient visits and air pollution and meteorology, and use multiple linear regression analysis to seek significance of these associations. Our results show that temperature and relative humidity tend to be negatively associated with respiratory diseases. NO and are two main air pollutants that are positively associated with respiratory diseases, followed by , , , CO, and . Young outpatients (age 0–15 years) are most sensitive to changing air pollution and meteorology factors, followed by the eldest (age 66 years) and age 16–65 years of outpatients. Outpatients for COPD diseases are most sensitive to air pollution and meteorology factors, followed by allergic rhinitis, asthma, and pneumonia diseases. In the context of sex difference to air pollution and meteorological factors, male outpatients are more sensitive than female outpatients in the 16–65 age groups, while female outpatients are more sensitive than male outpatients in the young 0–15 age groups and in the eldest age groups. In total, female outpatients are more sensitive to air pollution and meteorological factors than male outpatients.

Toxic effects of air pollutants were individually identified in various organs of the body. However, the concurrent occurrences and the connection of diseases in multiple organs arise from air pollution has not been concurrently studied before. Here we hypothesize that there exist connected health effects arise from air pollution when diseases in various organs were considered together. We used medical data from hospital outpatient visits for various organs in the body with a disease-air pollution model that represents each of the diseases as a function of the environmental factors. Our results show that elevated air pollution risks (above 40%) concurrently occurred in diseases of spondylosis, cerebrovascular, pneumonia, accidents, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), influenza, osteoarthritis (OA), asthma, peptic ulcer disease (PUD), cancer, heart, hypertensive, diabetes, kidney, and rheumatism. Air pollutants that were associated with elevated health risks are particular matters with diameters equal or less than 2.5 μm (PM 2.5 ), nitrogen dioxide (NO 2 ), ozone (O 3 ), particular matters with diameters equal or less than 10 μm (PM 10 ), carbon monoxide (CO), and nitrogen oxide (NO). Concurrent occurrences of diseases in various organs indicate that the immune system tries to connectively defend the body from persistent and rising air pollution.matter present in frontal and temporal lobes and corpus callosum 5 . Combustion-derived iron-rich magnetite nanoparticles from airborne particulate matter pollution were found in the human brain 13 , showing that air pollution particles were directly transported and deposited in the human brain. Mice exposed to elevated levels of NO 2 (2.5-5.0 mg/m 3 ) were found to show the deterioration of spatial learning and memory, aggravated amyloid β 42 accumulation, promoted pathological abnormalities, and cognitive defects related to Alzheimer's disease 14 . Humans exposed to NO 2 and PM 2.5 were positively correlated with the incidence of dementia in London, England 15 . Toxins accompanying air pollutants into the body exert chronic activation of microglia, leading to direct neuronal damage and neuronal death in the central nervous system 16 Delicate communication exists between the brain and the immune system 17,18 , and evidence that connects health and emotions through neural activity in the brain 19 . These pathophysiological findings reveal that air pollutants affected the central nervous system, leading to the decline of brain function 20 and fatal diseases 18 .Pathophysiological evidence convincingly showed pathways of various diseases arose from air pollution 21 . Hence, more diseases associated with air pollution remained to be discovered in the population 22 . Kampa and Castanas 23 and Jay 24 showed that diseases associated with air pollution were found in various parts of human organs: cardiovascular and circulatory system, digestive and excretory system, endocrine system, integumentary and exocrine system, lymphatic and immune system, muscular and skeletal s...

[1] Ambient measurements of PM 10 levels in Taiwan over East Asia have shown unusual decreases for the 1994-2002 period. To assess these downward trends of PM 10 , we develop methods for calculating climatologies of PM 10 and airstreams, and a new method for quantifying airstreams and their associated impacts on PM 10 and PM 10 -influencing factors. These methods were verified against anomalously low PM 10 levels during the 1998 ENSO, and anomalously high PM 10 levels during spring 2000. Calculations show the following: 20-23% increased occurrence of airstreams from the north direction in spring 2000 coincide with 14-16% increases in ambient PM 10 levels downstream over Taiwan; 60% increased occurrence of airstreams over western Pacific coincide with 10-15% drops in ambient PM 10 levels downstream during the 1998 ENSO. Comparison of airstreams between 1994-1997 and 1999-2002 show a 15-29% reduction over the eastern direction and a 7-17% increase over the western direction. The most significant findings associated with these changes are the reduction in close-to-surface inversions, the increase in rainfall, the increase in continental outflows, and the counteracting effects between these processes. The reduction in close-to-surface inversions dilutes ambient particles from the surface toward the free troposphere, thereby reducing ambient PM 10 levels; increases in rainfall provide efficient wet scavenging mechanisms for removing particles from the ambient air. These two processes counteract and dominate over the increase in airstreams over the northwestern direction, where continental pollutants are exported downstream, and results in the downward trends in PM 10 .

Abstract. The research infrastructure IAGOS (In-Service Aircraft for a Global Observing System) equips commercial aircraft with instruments to monitor the composition of the atmosphere during flights around the world. In this article, we use data from two China Airlines aircraft based in Taipei (Taiwan) which provided daily measurements of ozone, carbon monoxide and water vapour throughout the summer of 2016. We present time series, from the surface to the upper troposphere, of ozone, carbon monoxide and relative humidity near Taipei, focusing on periods influenced by the passage of typhoons. We examine landing and take-off profiles in the vicinity of tropical cyclones using ERA-5 reanalyses to elucidate the origin of the anomalies in the vertical distribution of these chemical species. Results indicate a high ozone content in the upper- to middle-troposphere track of the storms. The high ozone mixing ratios are generally correlated with potential vorticity and anti-correlated with relative humidity, suggesting stratospheric origin. These results suggest that tropical cyclones participate in transporting air from the stratosphere to troposphere and that such transport could be a regular feature of typhoons. After the typhoons passed Taiwan, the tropospheric column was filled with substantially lower ozone mixing ratios due to the rapid uplift of marine boundary layer air. At the same time, the relative humidity increased, and carbon monoxide mixing ratios fell. Locally, therefore, the passage of typhoons has a positive effect on air quality at the surface, cleansing the atmosphere and reducing the mixing ratios of pollutants such as CO and O3.