A Review on Climate, Air Pollution, and Health in North Africa

Abstract

Purpose of Review The aim of this review is to summarize and provide clear insights into studies that evaluate the interaction between air pollution, climate, and health in North Africa. Recent Findings Few studies have estimated the effects of climate and air pollution on health in North Africa. Most of the studies highlighted the evidence of the link between climate and air pollution as driving factors and increased mortality and morbidity as health outcomes. Each North African country prioritized research on a specific health factor. It was observed that the health outcome from each driving factor depends on the studied area and data availability. The latter is a major challenge in the region. As such, more studies should be led in the future to cover more areas in North Africa and when more data are available. Data availability will help to explore the applicability of different tools and techniques new to the region. Summary This review explores studies related to climate and air pollution, and their possible impacts on health in North Africa. On one hand, air quality studies have focused mainly on particulate matter exceedance levels and their long-term exposure impacts, namely, morbidity and mortality. The observed differences between the various studies are mainly due to the used exposure–response function, the studied population, background emissions, and natural emission from the Sahara Desert that characterize the region. On the other hand, climate studies have focused primarily on the impact of heat waves, vector-borne disease, and mental disorders. More than half of these studies have been on leishmaniasis disease. The review revealed unbalanced and insufficient research on health impacts from air pollution episodes and climate extremes across the region.

Earth Observation in the EMMENA Region: Scoping Review of Current Applications and Knowledge Gaps

“…Similar to Imane et al [30], the search strategy consisted of three steps (Figure 2): Identification: The key word searches were conducted in the Web of Science™ database to find articles about EO in the EMMENA region for the past five years. As search terms, we selected the "Topic" option which searched journals' title, abstract, and keywords for the following keywords: "Remote sensing OR Satellite OR Earth observations OR GIS OR geographical information systems".…”

Particulate Matter Pollution and Health Impacts in Six North African Countries

“…The law also incites a Ministerial Decree to set short-term values for information and alert the public as a maximum level of concentration of polluting substances in the atmosphere, determined based on scientific knowledge (Abderezak, 2009;Abderrahim et al, 2016). It appears that these values were not yet set by 2017 (Merabet, 2017) or even later (Imane et al, 2022).…”

“…More recently, Imane et al (2022) emphasize one study of 2021 in Algeria that links asthma and bronchitis hospital admission to air pollution due to a variety of emission sources. Collected data on PM 10 , PM 2.5 , and PM 1 were 60 μg/m 3 , 32 μg/m 3 , and 18 μg/m 3 , respectively.…”

“…This chapter covers air quality in Casablanca, which appears to be one of the most polluted cities in the country, exposed to industrial and road traffic pollution (Imane et al, 2022). Furthermore, the UNECE report discusses trends in emission levels, the performance and gaps in air quality monitoring, pressures on air quality, vehicle increase between 2015 and 2020, legal policy and institutional framework, and promotes recommendations to the Government.…”

Green Finance and Health: How Does Implementing Carbon Emissions Trading Affect Mental Health?

“…Numerous studies have extensively documented the adverse health effects of air pollution, including increased morbidity, cardiovascular diseases, and respiratory diseases [1][2] [3]. Additionally, while the impact of environmental pollution, particularly land, air, and water pollution, on social issues has been recognized , few studies have been conducted on the impact on intangible outcomes such as mental health [4].…”