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"Air Pollution -- prevention "
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Impact of air pollution on the burden of chronic respiratory diseases in China: time for urgent action
In China, where air pollution has become a major threat to public health, public awareness of the detrimental effects of air pollution on respiratory health is increasing—particularly in relation to haze days. Air pollutant emission levels in China remain substantially higher than are those in developed countries. Moreover, industry, traffic, and household biomass combustion have become major sources of air pollutant emissions, with substantial spatial and temporal variations. In this Review, we focus on the major constituents of air pollutants and their impacts on chronic respiratory diseases. We highlight targets for interventions and recommendations for pollution reduction through industrial upgrading, vehicle and fuel renovation, improvements in public transportation, lowering of personal exposure, mitigation of the direct effects of air pollution through healthy city development, intervention at population-based level (systematic health education, intensive and individualised intervention, pre-emptive measures, and rehabilitation), and improvement in air quality. The implementation of a national environmental protection policy has become urgent.
Journal Article
Taking Action on Air Pollution Control in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei (BTH) Region: Progress, Challenges and Opportunities
Due to rapid urbanization, industrialization and motorization, a large number of Chinese cities are affected by heavy air pollution. In order to explore progress, remaining challenges, and sustainability of air pollution control in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei (BTH) region after 2013, a mixed method analysis was undertaken. The quantitative analysis comprised an overview of air quality management in the BTH region. Semi-structured expert interviews were conducted with 12 stakeholders from various levels of government and research institutions who played substantial roles either in decision-making or in research and advising on air pollution control in the BTH region. The results indicated that with the stringent air pollution control policies, the air quality in BTH meets the targets of the Air Pollution Prevention and Control Action Plan. However, improvements vary across the region and for different pollutants. Although implementation has been decisive and was at least in parts effectively enforced, significant challenges remained with regard to industrial and traffic emission control, and national air quality limits continued to be significantly exceeded and competing development interests remained mainly unsolved. There were also concerns about the sustainability of the current air pollution control measures especially for industries due to the top-down enforcement, and the associated large burden of social cost including unemployment and social inequity resulting industrial restructuring. Better mechanisms for ensuring cross-sectoral coordination and for improved central-local government communication were suggested. Further suggestions were provided to improve the conceptual design and effective implementation of respective air pollution control strategies in BTH. Our study highlights some of the major hurdles that need to be addressed to succeed with a comprehensive air pollution control management for the Chinese mega-urban agglomerations.
Journal Article
Impact of improved stove intervention on infant acute respiratory infections: Results from a randomized trial in Northwest Ethiopia
Globally, millions of young children affected by acute respiratory infections every year, which is the leading cause of death and serious illness among children. Though strategies, including promoting improved stoves, have been implemented to combat this public health challenge, the effectiveness of local improved stoves introduced during pregnancy in reducing household air pollution and related respiratory illnesses remains limited.
Following the main trial randomization, 343 infants born to mothers in the study groups were followed for six months, with assessments of acute respiratory infections (ARI) occurring every two months. The stove intervention's impact was evaluated by comparing the acute respiratory infection incidence rate between the intervention and control groups. Respiratory illnesses were assessed using Integrated Management of Childhood Illness (IMCI) guidelines. The incidence rate ratio (IRR) was estimated using a marginal Poisson model fitted via Generalized Estimating Equations (GEE).
During the six-month follow-up period, a total of 43 infants (18 intervention, 25 control) experienced at least one acute respiratory infection (ARI) episode, resulting in a cumulative incidence of 12% (95% CI: 10, 14%). Although the intervention group consistently showed a reduction in ARI incidence rates compared to the control group (a 20% reduction), the adjusted Incidence Rate Ratio (IRR = 0.81; 95%CI: 0.56, 1.16; P = 0.252) was not statistically significant. A non-significant trend toward benefit was noted overall, with the subgroup analyses suggesting promising, non-significant reductions primarily among female infants and infants from larger families.
The overall study did not find a statistically significant protective effect of the intervention stoves on ARI incidence. However, the observed non-significant trend suggests a potential protective effect. Further research with larger sample sizes and longer follow-up periods is warranted to confirm this potential benefit.
The main trial was registered at the Pan African Clinical Trial Registry website under the code PACTR202111534227089, (https://pactr.samrc.ac.za/ (Identifier) on the registration date of (11/11/2021).
Journal Article
Breathe : tackling the climate emergency
\"An inspiring, pull-no-punches story of practical change. Full of London heroes and tips for citizens and campaigns around the UK and beyond to change the story of the climate crisis and our health for the better. A lifelong Londoner, Sadiq Khan developed adult-onset asthma as a result of London's dirty air. As he became Mayor of London, and worked with other Londoners to bring practical, progressive change to bear on issues of health and environmentalism around the city, London became world-leading in positive climate action. This book celebrates what's happened, looks at practical action in politics, tells the story of Sadiq's London story - and asks that readers hold his actions to account\"--Publisher's description.
Book
Causal inference with interfering units for cluster and population level treatment allocation programs
Interference arises when an individual's potential outcome depends on the individual treatment level, but also on the treatment level of others. A common assumption in the causal inference literature in the presence of interference is partial interference, implying that the population can be partitioned in clusters of individuals whose potential outcomes only depend on the treatment of units within the same cluster. Previous literature has defined average potential outcomes under counterfactual scenarios where treatments are randomly allocated to units within a cluster. However, within clusters there may be units that are more or less likely to receive treatment based on covariates or neighbors' treatment. We define new estimands that describe average potential outcomes for realistic counterfactual treatment allocation programs, extending existing estimands to take into consideration the units' covariates and dependence between units' treatment assignment. We further propose entirely new estimands for population-level interventions over the collection of clusters, which correspond in the motivating setting to regulations at the federal (vs. cluster or regional) level. We discuss these estimands, propose unbiased estimators and derive asymptotic results as the number of clusters grows. For a small number of observed clusters, a bootstrap approach for confidence intervals is proposed. Finally, we estimate effects in a comparative effectiveness study of power plant emission reduction technologies on ambient ozone pollution.
Journal Article
The Age of Smoke
In 1880, coal was the primary energy source for everything from home heating to industry. Regions where coal was readily available, such as the Ruhr Valley in Germany and western Pennsylvania in the United States, witnessed exponential growth-yet also suffered the greatest damage from coal pollution.These conditions prompted civic activism in the form of \"anti-smoke\" campaigns to attack the unsightly physical manifestations of coal burning. This early period witnessed significant cooperation between industrialists, government, and citizens to combat the smoke problem. It was not until the 1960s, when attention shifted from dust and grime to hazardous invisible gases, that cooperation dissipated, and protests took an antagonistic turn.The Age of Smokepresents an original, comparative history of environmental policy and protest in the United States and Germany. Dividing this history into distinct eras (1880 to World War I, interwar, post-World War II to 1970), Frank Uekoetter compares and contrasts the influence of political, class, and social structures, scientific communities, engineers, industrial lobbies, and environmental groups in each nation. He concludes with a discussion of the environmental revolution, arguing that there were indeed two environmental revolutions in both countries: one societal, where changing values gave urgency to air pollution control, the other institutional, where changes in policies tried to catch up with shifting sentiments.Focusing on a critical period in environmental history,The Age of Smokeprovides a valuable study of policy development in two modern industrial nations, and the rise of civic activism to combat air pollution. As Uekoetter's work reveals, the cooperative approaches developed in an earlier era offer valuable lessons and perhaps the best hope for future progress.
eBook