Coarse Particulate Matter Air Pollution and Hospital Admissions for Cardiovascular and Respiratory Diseases Among Medicare Patients

Abstract

EGULATORY CONTROL OF AIRborne particulate matter is hindered by an uncertain understanding of the toxicity of the particulate matter mixture. The National Research Council's Committee on Research Priorities for Airborne Particulate Matter identified the limited information on the health effects of particulate matter characteristics, including size, as a key area for research. 1 Numerous epidemiological studies have been published on risks associated with particulate matter that is 10 µm or less in diameter (PM 10 ). 2 More recent work has focused on particulate matter that is 2.5 µm or less in diameter (PM 2.5 ), for which strong evidence of an association with mortality and morbidity has been found. 3,4 Research on the health effects of coarse thoracic particles in the size range of greater than 2.5 µm and 10 µm or less in diameter (PM 10-2.5 ) is limited and findings have been mixed. 5 The chemical composition of particulate matter differs by size with more crustal materials in PM 10-2.5 and more combustionrelated constituents in PM 2.5 . [6][7][8] The health effects associated with ambient exposure to PM 10-2.5 could differ from those of PM 2.5 given differences in the sites of deposition in the respiratory tract and the sources and chemical composition for these 2 different-sized fractions.Coarse particles, which are produced primarily by processes such as mechanical grinding, windblown dust, and agricultural activities, deposit pref-Author Affiliations: Departments of Biostatistics

A rapid assessment of the impact of hazard reduction burning around Sydney, May 2016

“…Taking into account the newest evidence on the effects of coarse PM on cardiorespiratory health (Chen et al, 2005;Halonen et al, 2008Halonen et al, , 2009Peng et al, 2008;Perez et al, 2009a;, the EPA integrated science assessment for PM concluded that, in general, short-term epidemiological studies reported positive associations between mortality and cardiovascular and respiratory hospital admissions (EPA, 2009). For cardiovascular outcomes (admissions and physiological effects), effect estimates of coarse PM were found to be comparable to those of PM 2.5 .…”

Opportunities and Challenges in Public Health Data Collection in Southern Asia: Examples from Western India and Kathmandu Valley, Nepal

“…Examples include studies at the community level, such as the use of union health records to understand the impact of chronic asbestos exposure on neoplasia outcomes among insulation trade workers in New York and New Jersey [6], as well as large studies across the US examining the impacts of ambient air pollution on health [7,8]. Health data in developing regions are needed for research aimed at understanding the local determinants of health.…”

Chemical Characterization and Source Apportionment of PM2.5 in Rabigh, Saudi Arabia

“…The International Agency for Research on Cancer classifies air pollution as a Group 1 carcinogen to humans. Recent epidemiological studies indicate that exposure to PM 2.5 is associated with increased cardiopulmonary morbidity and mortality (Laden et al, 2000;Pope et al, 2004;Chow et al, 2006;Pope and Dockery, 2006;Peng et al, 2008), exacerbation of the pre-existing medical conditions such as asthma, COPD (Sunyer et al, 2000;Bernstein et al, 2004;Peden, 2005;Karakatsani et al, 2012) and other respiratory ailments especially among elderly and children (Cançado et al, 2006). Some studies have indicated that levels of particulate matter are high in Saudi Arabia (Nasrallah andSeroji, 2008, Khodeir et al, 2012;Munir et al, 2013).…”