Journal Article

Airborne particulate matter, population mobility and COVID-19: a multi-city study in China

Fu, Shihua, He, Xiaotao, Zhou, Ji, Xu, Xiaocheng, Liu, Jiangtao, Liu, Xingrong, Niu, Jingping, Zhang, Kai, Li, Lanyu, Wang, Bo, Shi, Yanjun, Li, Yiyao, Li, Yanlin, Luo, Bin, Yan, Jun, Yang, Yong

2020

Overview

Background Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is an emerging infectious disease, which has caused numerous deaths and health problems worldwide. This study aims to examine the effects of airborne particulate matter (PM) pollution and population mobility on COVID-19 across China. Methods We obtained daily confirmed cases of COVID-19, air particulate matter (PM 2.5 , PM 10 ), weather parameters such as ambient temperature (AT) and absolute humidity (AH), and population mobility scale index (MSI) in 63 cities of China on a daily basis (excluding Wuhan) from January 01 to March 02, 2020. Then, the Generalized additive models (GAM) with a quasi-Poisson distribution were fitted to estimate the effects of PM 10 , PM 2.5 and MSI on daily confirmed COVID-19 cases. Results We found each 1 unit increase in daily MSI was significantly positively associated with daily confirmed cases of COVID-19 in all lag days and the strongest estimated RR (1.21, 95% CIs:1.14 ~ 1.28) was observed at lag 014. In PM analysis, we found each 10 μg/m 3 increase in the concentration of PM 10 and PM 2.5 was positively associated with the confirmed cases of COVID-19, and the estimated strongest RRs (both at lag 7) were 1.05 (95% CIs: 1.04, 1.07) and 1.06 (95% CIs: 1.04, 1.07), respectively. A similar trend was also found in all cumulative lag periods (from lag 01 to lag 014). The strongest effects for both PM 10 and PM 2.5 were at lag 014, and the RRs of each 10 μg/m 3 increase were 1.18 (95% CIs:1.14, 1.22) and 1.23 (95% CIs:1.18, 1.29), respectively. Conclusions Population mobility and airborne particulate matter may be associated with an increased risk of COVID-19 transmission.

• Publisher: BioMed Central,BioMed Central Ltd,Springer Nature B.V,BMC
• Subject: Absolute humidity / Aerosols / Air pollution / Air temperature / Airborne particulates / Ambient temperature / Biostatistics / Causes of / China / China - epidemiology / Cities / Cities - epidemiology / Coronavirus Infections - epidemiology / Coronaviruses / COVID-19 / Disease transmission / Distribution / Environmental Health / Epidemics / Epidemiology / Generalized additive models / Health aspects / Health problems / Humans / Humidity / Infectious diseases / Influenza / Medicine / Medicine & Public Health / Mobility / Normal distribution / Outdoor air quality / Pandemics / Particulate emissions / Particulate matter / Particulate Matter - adverse effects / Particulate Matter - analysis / Pathogens / Pneumonia, Viral - epidemiology / Poisson distribution / Population / Population Dynamics - statistics & numerical data / Population mobility / Public Health / Research Article / Risk Assessment / Risk factors / Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 / Social mobility / Vaccine / Viral diseases / Viruses / Weather