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PM2.5 exposure possibly leads to 1.37M people’s premature death in China

english.pku.edu.cn

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Re: PM2.5 exposure possibly leads to 1.37M people’s premature death in China

#11

Post by pyk »

reasonattlm wrote: post #4

The challenge in linking air pollution to age-related disease and mortality risk lies in the confounding correlation with wealth. There are plausible physical mechanisms involving, for example, increased levels of inflammation resulting from high levels of particulate air pollution, but regions with lower levels of air pollution tend to have much wealthier populations, and it is well known that wealth correlates with…

Agreed wealth is a confound, however there are several studies that control for socioeconomic status, air conditioning and smoking. These studies still observe a correlation between PM2.5 and increased all-cause mortality primarily driven by increased lung cancer and heart disease mortality. A couple studies linked below control for a few of these confounds, but there are several others too [1,2].

The causal reason is likely the fine particulate matter getting "stuck" in lung tissue and our bodies unable to remove the particles causing accumulative issues on lung function [3].

[1] http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/nejmsa0805646

[2] http://circ.ahajournals.org/content/109/1/71.full

[3] http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/10473289.2006.104...

Re: PM2.5 exposure possibly leads to 1.37M people’s premature death in China

#12

Post by Retric »

kristianov wrote: post #7

For reference, it is one in a thousand (Chinese population is ~1.4B).

That's 1:1,000 per year so a much higher percentage of overall deaths. On the order of ~7% of all deaths in china assuming 1/1000 * ~70 year life expectancy.

Re: PM2.5 exposure possibly leads to 1.37M people’s premature death in China

#14

Post by pizza »

clumsysmurf wrote: post #6

Also, some of these particles enter the brain directly through the olfactory nerve. http://www.pnas.org/content/113/39/10797.abstract easier to read: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/sep/05/toxic-ai...

Crikey, that is a particularly sensible realization that is also quite alarming.

Re: PM2.5 exposure possibly leads to 1.37M people’s premature death in China

#16

Post by hellofunk »

frik wrote: post #8
hellofunk wrote: post #3

While China is somewhat the poster child for modern air pollution, do not overlook that PM2.5 and PM10 exposure is also very bad in many parts of Europe, SE Asia, and large American cities. The Netherlands occasionally experiences a haze that is quite visible and smokey-smelling, in fact tomorrow will be one of the worst days of the year for PM exposure in NW Europe: http://www.temis.nl/aqi/aqi_nl.html

Is there a good website that provides such air pollution current & forecasts for Europe or better world wide?

In addition to my sibling commenter, there is also:

http://www.airqualitynow.eu/

However, city-specific readings are not always reliable, as they are based on a very localized meter in one particular place that can rarely reveal the overall situation for an entire city. I prefer air pollution maps that show the overall state for a big region, like the one I linked to.

Re: PM2.5 exposure possibly leads to 1.37M people’s premature death in China

#17

Post by toufka »

mcguire wrote: post #2

For anyone else who doesn't immediately get the acronym, " Fine particles (PM2.5) are 2.5 micrometers in diameter or smaller, and can only be seen with an electron microscope. Fine particles are produced from all types of combustion, including motor vehicles, power plants, residential wood burning, forest fires, agricultural burning, and some industrial processes. " https://airnow.gov/index.cfm?action=aqibasics.parti…

AKA, nanoparticles; 2.5 micrometers = 2500 nanometers.

Re: PM2.5 exposure possibly leads to 1.37M people’s premature death in China

#18

Post by mikeash »

reasonattlm wrote: post #4

The challenge in linking air pollution to age-related disease and mortality risk lies in the confounding correlation with wealth. There are plausible physical mechanisms involving, for example, increased levels of inflammation resulting from high levels of particulate air pollution, but regions with lower levels of air pollution tend to have much wealthier populations, and it is well known that wealth correlates with…

Is clean air really correlated with wealth in China? The wealthy Chinese are generally in big cities which is where the terrible pollution is found.

Re: PM2.5 exposure possibly leads to 1.37M people’s premature death in China

#20

Post by anexprogrammer »

hellofunk wrote: post #3

While China is somewhat the poster child for modern air pollution, do not overlook that PM2.5 and PM10 exposure is also very bad in many parts of Europe, SE Asia, and large American cities. The Netherlands occasionally experiences a haze that is quite visible and smokey-smelling, in fact tomorrow will be one of the worst days of the year for PM exposure in NW Europe: http://www.temis.nl/aqi/aqi_nl.html

I wonder how much of that stems from the efforts to promote diesels over petrol for CO2 reasons.
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