The Role of Trees in Winter Air Purification on Children’s Routes to School

Air pollution is now considered to be the world’s largest environmental health threat, accounting for millions of deaths globally each year. The social group that is particularly exposed to the harmful effects of air pollution is children. Their vulnerability results from higher breathing frequency and being subject to concentration peaks just above the ground. The negative effects of ambient particulate matter also depend on the time of exposure. A daily route to school can constitute an important component of children’s physical activity, but air pollution can pose a threat to their health. Numerous studies have proved that high loads of PM can be effectively reduced by vegetation. Little is known, however, on whether vegetation can also reduce PM during leaf dormancy. In this study we investigated the role of trees in air purification during the leafless period in children’s routes to selected schools located in Warsaw during winter. The results obtained show a weak impact of the tree canopy in winter.

A semi-automated instrument for cellular oxidative potential evaluation (SCOPE) of water-soluble extracts of ambient particulate matter

Several automated instruments exist to measure the acellular oxidative potential (OP) of ambient particulate matter (PM). However, cellular OP of the ambient PM is still measured manually, which severely limits the comparison between two types of assays. Cellular assays could provide a more comprehensive assessment of the PM-induced oxidative stress, as they incorporate more biological processes involved in the PM-catalyzed reactive oxygen species (ROS) generation. Considering this need, we developed a semi-automated instrument, the first of its kind, for measuring the cellular OP based on a macrophage ROS assay using rat alveolar macrophages. The instrument named SCOPE – semi-automated instrument for cellular oxidative potential evaluation – uses dichlorofluorescein diacetate (DCFH-DA) as a probe to detect the OP of PM samples extracted in water. SCOPE is capable of analyzing a batch of six samples (including one negative and one positive control) in 5 h and is equipped to operate continuously for 24 h with minimal manual intervention after every batch of analysis, i.e., after every 5 h. SCOPE has a high analytical precision as assessed from both positive controls and ambient PM samples (coefficient of variation (CoV)<17 %). The results obtained from the instrument were in good agreement with manual measurements using tert-butyl hydroperoxide (t-BOOH) as the positive control (slope =0.83 for automated vs. manual, R2=0.99) and ambient samples (slope =0.83, R2=0.71). We further demonstrated the ability of SCOPE to analyze a large number of both ambient and laboratory samples and developed a dataset on the intrinsic cellular OP of several compounds, such as metals, quinones, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) and inorganic salts, commonly known to be present in ambient PM. This dataset is potentially useful in future studies to apportion the contribution of key chemical species in the overall cellular OP of ambient PM.

Global Burden of Respiratory Diseases Attributable to Ambient Particulate Matter Pollution: Findings From the Global Burden of Disease Study 2019

Background: Exposure to ambient particulate matter pollution (APMP) is a global health issue that directly affects the human respiratory system. Thus, we estimated the spatiotemporal trends in the burden of APMP-related respiratory diseases from 1990 to 2019.Methods: Based on the Global Burden of Disease Study 2019, data on the burden of APMP-related respiratory diseases were analyzed by age, sex, cause, and location. Joinpoint regression analysis was used to analyze the temporal trends in the burden of different respiratory diseases over the 30 years.Results: Globally, in 2019, APMP contributed the most to chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), with 695.1 thousand deaths and 15.4 million disability-adjusted life years (DALYs); however, the corresponding age-standardized death and DALY rates declined from 1990 to 2019. Similarly, although age-standardized death and DALY rates since 1990 decreased by 24% and 40%, respectively, lower respiratory infections (LRIs) still had the second highest number of deaths and DALYs attributable to APMP. This was followed by tracheal, bronchus, and lung (TBL) cancer, which showed increased age-standardized death and DALY rates during the past 30 years and reached 3.78 deaths per 100,000 persons and 84.22 DALYs per 100,000 persons in 2019. Among children aged &lt; 5 years, LRIs had a huge burden attributable to APMP, whereas for older people, COPD was the leading cause of death and DALYs attributable to APMP. The APMP-related burdens of LRIs and COPD were relatively higher among countries with low and low-middle socio-demographic index (SDI), while countries with high-middle SDI showed the highest burden of TBL cancer attributable to APMP.Conclusions: APMP contributed substantially to the global burden of respiratory diseases, posing a significant threat to human health. Effective actions aimed at air pollution can potentially avoid an increase in the PM2.5-associated disease burden, especially in highly polluted areas.