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Air Pollution

This page has a list of publications and news articles related to Air Pollution. Find more information about our research on Air Pollution.
Special Report 20
GBD MAPS Working Group
2016

Special Report 20, Burden of Disease Attributable to Coal-Burning and Other Major Sources of Air Pollution in China, provides the first comprehensive assessment of the current and predicted burdens of disease attributable to coal-burning and other major sources of particulate matter air pollution (PM2.5) in China at the national and provincial levels. It is the result of the Global Burden of Disease – Major Air Pollution Sources (GDB MAPS) project, an international collaboration of Tsinghua University, the Health Effects Institute, the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME), and the University of British Columbia. The analyses show that coal combustion is the single largest source of air pollution-related health impact, contributing to some 366,000 premature deaths in China in 2013, with industry and household combustion as major contributors as well. The report also indicates that health burdens could grow substantially by 2030 if no further action is taken. 燃煤和其他主要大气污染源所致的中国疾病负担 (Special Report 20 in Chinese)

 

专题报告20
GBD MAPS 工作组
2016

专题报告20,燃煤和其他主要大气污染源所致的中国疾病负担。报告从国家与省级层面,对中国燃煤及其他主要空气污染源释放的细颗粒物(PM2.5)所造成当前及未来疾病负担进行了第一次综合评估。此项报告由清华大学、健康影响研究所、健康指标和评估研究所(IHME)与不列颠哥伦比亚大学联合发布,是全球疾病负担-主要空气污染源(GDB MAPS)这一国际合作项目的研究结果。分析表明,燃煤是造成空气污染、影响健康的最大元凶。2013年,仅燃煤一项在中国就导致约36.6万人过早死亡,其中以工业与民用燃煤影响最为重大。报告还指出,如不采取进一步行动,到2030年健康负担将会大幅增加。Burden of Disease Attributable to Coal-Burning and Other Air Pollution Sources in China (in English)

Research Report 188
Jun Wu
Olivier Laurent
Lianfa Li
Jianlin Hu
Michael Kleeman
2016

HEI Research Report 188 analyzes associations between increases in various air pollution exposure metrics and increased risks of preterm birth. Jun Wu was funded under HEI's Walter A. Rosenblith New Investigator Award to conduct a comprehensive nested, case-control study of air pollution and adverse birth and pregnancy outcomes, using birth certificate data collected in California from 2001 to 2008. 

Research Report 187
Corwin M. Zigler
Chanmin Kim
Christine Choirat
John Barrett Hansen
Yun Wang
Lauren Hund
Jonathan Samet
Gary King
Francesca Dominici
2016

HEI Research Report 187 was funded as part of HEI’s Accountability research program, aimed at understanding whether actions to improve air quality have resulted in improved health outcomes. Corwin M. Zigler and his colleagues used existing and newly developed statistical methods to assess whether an intervention was causally related to changes in pollutant levels or health outcomes, and applied their methods in two well-developed case studies: effects of air quality interventions to reduce PM10 concentrations in nonattainment areas and the impact of installation of scrubber technologies on emissions from coal-fired power plants.

Research Report 186
David Q Rich
Annette Peters
Alexandra Schneider
Wojciech Zareba
Susanne Breitner
David Oakes
Jelani Wiltshire
Cathleen Kane
Mark W Frampton
Regina Hampel
Philip K Hopke
Josef Cyrys
Mark J Utell
2016

Using data from four previously completed studies (two panel studies and two controlled-exposure studies), David Rich and Annette Peters and their teams investigated potential mechanisms behind the effects of short-term exposure to PM2.5 and ultrafine particles on changes in cardiac rhythm, including heart rate variability and other ECG parameters.

This newsletter reports on a third study under way in Europe to complete the comprehensive HEI effort to examine the potential health effects of air pollution at low levels; HEI's new research program focusing on the health effects of exposure to traffic-related pollution; and the GBD MAPS team's presentation of preliminary data on coal’s impact on health in China. In addition, it covers the publication of two new research reports covering novel statistical methods for studying pollutant mixtures and a “direct” approach evaluating the impact of air quality interventions through “causal inference” methods, as well as the retirement of HEI's Aaron Cohen, a strategy session held with HEI's sponsors, and HEI in the news.

Research Report 183, Part 3
John Molitor
Eric Coker
Michael Jerrett
Beate Ritz
Arthur Li
2016

This report is Part 3 of HEI Research Report 183, Development of Statistical Methods for Multipollutant Research. It describes a study to develop and apply statistical methods to analyze the effects of multipollutant exposures on health, expanding beyond the two-pollutant approaches used in many studies to date. HEI funded three innovative studies in recent years to improve the tools for analyzing complex multipollutant exposures. In this last report from these studies, John Molitor and colleagues describe a Bayesian framework to identify spatial clusters of air pollution exposures — and other covariates such as socioeconomic status — and estimated pregnancy outcomes associated with those clusters, using a data set for Los Angeles county. 

Research Report 185
Patrick H Ryan
Cole Brokamp
Zhi-Hua (Tina) Fan
MB Rao
2015

This report describes a study by Dr. Patrick Ryan at the Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center. He used the RIOPA data – which HEI has made available to all scientists on the Web to further explore relationships among the elemental composition of indoor, outdoor, and personal PM2.5 samples collected at participant’s homes. His analyses included traditional and novel approaches to comparing the samples.

Communication - ACES
Health Effects Institute
2015

This Executive Summary of the Advanced Collaborative Emissions Study (ACES) summarizes the main findings of emissions and health testing of new-technology heavy-duty diesel engines capable of meeting US 2007/2010 and EURO VI/6 diesel emissions standards. The results demonstrated the dramatic improvements in emissions and the absence of any significant health effects (especially cancer). ACES was the most comprehensive examination done to date of engines meeting the US 2007 and 2010 on-road standards.