Today, air quality in many Asian cities exceeds the World Health Organization (WHO) guideline limits for the protection of human health. According to WHO, 92% of the world’s population now live in places where air quality levels exceed health limits, and that 7 million premature deaths worldwide are linked to exposure to ambient and household air pollution. Air pollution also adversely affects the...

This module highlights inter-agency collaboration especially in conducting an HIA. The ability to link health and environmental data to understand relationships between levels of exposure and health outcomes is vital in managing the impacts of poor air quality on health. With this document, AQM practitioners and relevant stakeholders would learn the advantages of collaboration in conducting an HIA...

Health Impact Assessments can be done through various techniques using different tools that make data compilation and analysis more efficient. There is no standard or prescribed tool to use for all, as the tool of choice should match with the resources and technical capacity of the group who will conduct the assessment. The task of deciding which tool to use from a range of choices becomes challen...

In this module, the general considerations for a city in understanding and preparing for an HIA are discussed, in order to help air quality managers incorporate public health in decision making related to air pollution. This module provides a list and description of the general types of HIA methods that can be done in cities, especially in the context of AQM. The stages of the general HIA process ...

This briefing presents information for 2021 of the estimated harm to human health caused by three key air pollutants: fine particulate matter, nitrogen dioxide and ozone. This year’s assessment also presents an estimation of the health impacts associated with specific diseases to which air pollution contributes....

Keswani and colleagues review the linkages between climate change and air pollution and suggest strategies that clinicians may use to mitigate the adverse health impacts of air pollution....

Ultrafine particles (PM0.1), which are present in the air in large numbers, pose a health risk. They generally enter the body through the lungs but translocate to essentially all organs. Compared to fine particles (PM2.5), they cause more pulmonary inflammation and are retained longer in the lung. Their toxicity is increased with smaller size, larger surface area, adsorbed surface material, and th...

Regardless of whether one lives in a rural or urban area, in a city or suburb, pollutants are ubiquitous in the air we breathe. The public health dangers of air pollution exposure are well documented (Sun & Zhu, 2019), and older adults are considered one of the most at-risk populations for adverse health impacts from air pollution (Simoni et al., 2015). Other groups with a disproportionate health ...

Exposure to particulate matter (PM) pollution damages the human brain. Fossil fuel burning for transportation energy accounts for a significant fraction of urban air and climate pollution. While current United States (US) standards limit PM ambient concentrations and emissions, they do not regulate explicitly ultrafine particles (UFP ≤ 100 nm in diameter). There is a growing body of evidence sugge...

The objective of this review is to support the derivation of updated guidelines by the World Health Organization (WHO) by performing a systematic review of evidence of associations between long-term exposure to particulate matter with diameter under 2.5 µm (PM2.5) and particulate matter with diameter under 10 µm (PM10), in relation to all-cause and cause-specific mortality. As there is especially ...