Epidemiology of fine particulate air pollution and human health: biologic mechanisms and who's at risk?

By C. Pope. Environmental Health Perspectives, 2000

1,057 citations recorded by the source corpus.

This article briefly summarizes the epidemiology of the health effects of fine particulate air pollution, provides an early, somewhat speculative, discussion of the contribution of epidemiology to evaluating biologic mechanisms, and evaluates who's at risk or is susceptible to adverse health effects. Based on preliminary epidemiologic evidence, it is speculated that a systemic response to fine particle-induced pulmonary inflammation, including cytokine release and altered cardiac autonomic function, may be part of the pathophysiologic mechanisms or pathways linking particulate pollution with cardiopulmonary disease. The elderly, infants, and persons with chronic cardiopulmonary disease, influenza, or asthma are most susceptible to mortality and serious morbidity effects from short-term acutely elevated exposures. Others are susceptible to less serious health effects such as transient increases in respiratory symptoms, decreased lung function, or other physiologic changes. Chronic exposure studies suggest relatively broad susceptibility to cumulative effects of long-term repeated exposure to fine particulate pollution, resulting in substantive estimates of population average loss of life expectancy in highly polluted environments. Additional knowledge is needed about the specific pollutants or mix of pollutants responsible for the adverse health effects and the biologic mechanisms involved.

Subfields: Health, Toxicology and Mutagenesis, Pollution

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/82bfa308e0ce147b63f9217528513ad958f2e3f7

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In Health, Toxicology and Mutagenesis

In Pollution

Citations in the corpus

A Review of Carbon Nanotube Toxicity and Assessment of Potential Occupational and Environmental Health Risks (2006, background): “In an American Cancer Society-sponsored epidemiological study of 1.2 million adults, Pope et al. (2002, 2004) reported that fine particulate matter in ambient air is a risk factor associated with cardiopulmonary mortality and cardiovascular and pulmonary diseases.”
Health effects of particulate air pollution: A review of epidemiological evidence (2011, background): “Pope (2000) and Zareba et al. (2001) added the “elderly in general” to the list of susceptible people.”
Something in the Air: Pollution and the Demand for Health Insurance (2018, background): “Exposure to air pollution also leads to more subtle effects, such as changes in blood pressure, irritation in the ear, nose, throat, and lungs, and mild headaches (Ghio et al., 2000; Pope, 2000;Auchincloss et al., 2008).”
Life Expectancy and the Environment (2010, background): “πt(ht, et) =  π if et +κht < J π if et +κht ≥ J , (31)”
The toxicology of climate change: environmental contaminants in a warming world. (2009, background): “…especially the elderly, infants and children, and individuals with pre-existing health conditions, such as chronic cardiopulmonary and immunological diseases, may be especially susceptible to these adverse interactions (Ebi et al., 2006; Oberdörster, 2001; Patz et al., 2000a; Pope, 2000).”