Dataset Information

Time to harmonize national ambient air quality standards.

ABSTRACT:

Objectives

The World Health Organization has developed ambient air quality guidelines at levels considered to be safe or of acceptable risk for human health. These guidelines are meant to support governments in defining national standards. It is unclear how they are followed.

Methods

We compiled an inventory of ambient air quality standards for 194 countries worldwide for six air pollutants: PM_2.5, PM₁₀, ozone, nitrogen dioxide, sulphur dioxide and carbon monoxide. We conducted literature and internet searches and asked country representatives about national ambient air quality standards.

Results

We found information on 170 countries including 57 countries that did not set any air quality standards. Levels varied greatly by country and by pollutant. Ambient air quality standards for PM_2.5, PM₁₀ and SO₂ poorly complied with WHO guideline values. The agreement was higher for CO, SO₂ (10-min averaging time) and NO₂.

Conclusions

Regulatory differences mirror the differences in air quality and the related burden of disease around the globe. Governments worldwide should adopt science based air quality standards and clean air management plans to continuously improve air quality locally, nationally, and globally.

SUBMITTER: Kutlar Joss M

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5397445 | biostudies-literature | 2017 May

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Publications

Time to harmonize national ambient air quality standards.

Kutlar Joss Meltem M Eeftens Marloes M Gintowt Emily E Kappeler Ron R Künzli Nino N

International journal of public health 20170227 4

<h4>Objectives</h4>The World Health Organization has developed ambient air quality guidelines at levels considered to be safe or of acceptable risk for human health. These guidelines are meant to support governments in defining national standards. It is unclear how they are followed.<h4>Methods</h4>We compiled an inventory of ambient air quality standards for 194 countries worldwide for six air pollutants: PM<sub>2.5</sub>, PM<sub>10</sub>, ozone, nitrogen dioxide, sulphur dioxide and carbon mon ...[more]

PMID: 28243681

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Project description:Objectives: National ambient air quality standards (NAAQS) are critical tools for controlling air pollution and protecting public health. We designed this study to 1) gather the NAAQS for six classical air pollutants: PM2.5, PM10, O3, NO2, SO2, and CO in the Eastern Mediterranean Region (EMR) countries, 2) compare those with the updated World Health Organizations Air Quality Guidelines (WHO AQGs 2021), 3) estimate the potential health benefits of achieving annual PM2.5 NAAQS and WHO AQGs per country, and 4) gather the information on air quality policies and action plans in the EMR countries. Methods: To gather information on the NAAQS, we searched several bibliographic databases, hand-searched the relevant papers and reports, and analysed unpublished data on NAAQS in the EMR countries reported from these countries to the WHO/Regional office of the Eastern Mediterranean/Climate Change, Health and Environment Unit (WHO/EMR/CHE). To estimate the potential health benefits of reaching the NAAQS and AQG levels for PM2.5, we used the average of ambient PM2.5 exposures in the 22 EMR countries in 2019 from the Global Burden of Disease (GBD) dataset and AirQ+ software. Results: Almost all of the EMR countries have national ambient air quality standards for the critical air pollutants except Djibouti, Somalia, and Yemen. However, the current standards for PM2.5 are up to 10 times higher than the current health-based WHO AQGs. The standards for other considered pollutants exceed AQGs as well. We estimated that the reduction of annual mean PM2.5 exposure level to the AQG level (5 μg m-3) would be associated with a decrease of all natural-cause mortality in adults (age 30+) by 16.9%-42.1% in various EMR countries. All countries would even benefit from the achievement of the Interim Target-2 (25 μg m-3) for annual mean PM2.5: it would reduce all-cause mortality by 3%-37.5%. Less than half of the countries in the Region reported having policies relevant to air quality management, in particular addressing pollution related to sand and desert storms (SDS) such as enhancing the implementation of sustainable land management practices, taking measures to prevent and control the main factors of SDS, and developing early warning systems as tools to combat SDS. Few countries conduct studies on the health effects of air pollution or on a contribution of SDS to pollution levels. Information from air quality monitoring is available for 13 out of the 22 EMR countries. Conclusion: Improvement of air quality management, including international collaboration and prioritization of SDS, supported by an update (or establishment) of NAAQSs and enhanced air quality monitoring are essential elements for reduction of air pollution and its health effects in the EMR.

Project description:Analyses of the relationships between climate, air substances and health usually concentrate on urban environments because of increased urban temperatures, high levels of air pollution and the exposure of a large number of people compared to rural environments. Ongoing urbanization, demographic ageing and climate change lead to an increased vulnerability with respect to climate-related extremes and air pollution. However, systematic analyses of the specific local-scale characteristics of health-relevant atmospheric conditions and compositions in urban environments are still scarce because of the lack of high-resolution monitoring networks. In recent years, low-cost sensors (LCS) became available, which potentially provide the opportunity to monitor atmospheric conditions with a high spatial resolution and which allow monitoring directly at vulnerable people. In this study, we present the atmospheric exposure low-cost monitoring (AELCM) system for several air substances like ozone, nitrogen dioxide, carbon monoxide and particulate matter, as well as meteorological variables developed by our research group. The measurement equipment is calibrated using multiple linear regression and extensively tested based on a field evaluation approach at an urban background site using the high-quality measurement unit, the atmospheric exposure monitoring station (AEMS) for meteorology and air substances, of our research group. The field evaluation took place over a time span of 4 to 8 months. The electrochemical ozone sensors (SPEC DGS-O3: R2: 0.71-0.95, RMSE: 3.31-7.79 ppb) and particulate matter sensors (SPS30 PM1/PM2.5: R2: 0.96-0.97/0.90-0.94, RMSE: 0.77-1.07 µg/m3/1.27-1.96 µg/m3) showed the best performances at the urban background site, while the other sensors underperformed tremendously (SPEC DGS-NO2, SPEC DGS-CO, MQ131, MiCS-2714 and MiCS-4514). The results of our study show that meaningful local-scale measurements are possible with the former sensors deployed in an AELCM unit.

Dataset Information

Time to harmonize national ambient air quality standards.

Objectives

Methods

Results

Conclusions

Publications

Time to harmonize national ambient air quality standards.

Similar Datasets

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