Subways and Urban Air Pollution.
Ontology highlight
ABSTRACT:
SUBMITTER: Gendron-Carrier N
PROVIDER: S-EPMC9838121 | biostudies-literature | 2022 Jan
REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature
Publications
Subways and Urban Air Pollution.
Gendron-Carrier Nicolas N Gonzalez-Navarro Marco M Polloni Stefano S Turner Matthew A MA
American economic journal. Applied economics 20220101 1
We investigate the effect of subway system openings on urban air pollution. On average, particulate concentrations are unchanged by subway openings. For cities with higher initial pollution levels, subway openings reduce particulates by 4 percent in the area surrounding a city center. The effect decays with distance to city center and persists over the longest time horizon that we can measure with our data, about four years. For highly polluted cities, we estimate that a new subway system provid ...[more]
Similar Datasets
Project description:In the present study, we investigate pulmonary transcriptional responses in mice following exposure in situ to ambient air in a heavily polluted urban environment. Mature C57BL/CBA male mice were caged in sheds located in an urban area near two working steel mills and a major highway in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. Control mice were housed in the same environment but received only high-efficiency particle-filtered air. Whole lung tissues were collected from mice exposed for 3 weeks, 10 weeks or for 10 weeks followed by 6 weeks in the laboratory (16 weeks total). DNA microarrays were used to explore changes in pulmonary gene expression in mice breathing ambient air versus HEPA-filtered air. Transcriptional profiling revealed changes in the expression of genes implicated in the lipid droplet synthesis pathway (plin, dgat2, lpl, s3-12, agpat2), antioxidants (ucp1). We postulate that exposure to particulate matter adsorbed with polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons triggers lipid droplet synthesis (holding depots for lipids and malformed/excess proteins tagged for degradation) in the lungs, which act to sequester particulates adsorbed with toxic chemicals. Increased lipid droplet synthesis could potentially lead to endogenous/stressor-induced synthesis of reactive oxygen species and activation of antioxidant mechanisms. Further investigation into the stimulation of lipid droplet synthesis in the lung in response to air pollution is warranted in order to better understand these mechanistic changes and the resulting health implications.
2013-09-30 | GSE41698 | GEO
Project description:Severe and persistent haze pollution involving fine particulate matter (PM2.5) concentrations reaching unprecedentedly high levels across many cities in China poses a serious threat to human health. Although mandatory temporary cessation of most urban and surrounding emission sources is an effective, but costly, short-term measure to abate air pollution, development of long-term crisis response measures remains a challenge, especially for curbing severe urban haze events on a regular basis. Here we introduce and evaluate a novel precision air pollution control approach (PAPCA) to mitigate severe urban haze events. The approach involves combining predictions of high PM2.5 concentrations, with a hybrid trajectory-receptor model and a comprehensive 3-D atmospheric model, to pinpoint the origins of emissions leading to such events and to optimize emission controls. Results of the PAPCA application to five severe haze episodes in major urban areas in China suggest that this strategy has the potential to significantly mitigate severe urban haze by decreasing PM2.5 peak concentrations by more than 60% from above 300 μg m-3 to below 100 μg m-3, while requiring ~30% to 70% less emission controls as compared to complete emission reductions. The PAPCA strategy has the potential to tackle effectively severe urban haze pollution events with economic efficiency.
| S-EPMC5970218 | biostudies-literature
Project description:In the present study, we investigate pulmonary transcriptional responses in mice following exposure in situ to ambient air in a heavily polluted urban environment. Mature C57BL/CBA male mice were caged in sheds located in an urban area near two working steel mills and a major highway in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. Control mice were housed in the same environment but received only high-efficiency particle-filtered air. Whole lung tissues were collected from mice exposed for 3 weeks, 10 weeks or for 10 weeks followed by 6 weeks in the laboratory (16 weeks total). DNA microarrays were used to explore changes in pulmonary gene expression in mice breathing ambient air versus HEPA-filtered air. Transcriptional profiling revealed changes in the expression of genes implicated in the lipid droplet synthesis pathway (plin, dgat2, lpl, s3-12, agpat2), antioxidants (ucp1). We postulate that exposure to particulate matter adsorbed with polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons triggers lipid droplet synthesis (holding depots for lipids and malformed/excess proteins tagged for degradation) in the lungs, which act to sequester particulates adsorbed with toxic chemicals. Increased lipid droplet synthesis could potentially lead to endogenous/stressor-induced synthesis of reactive oxygen species and activation of antioxidant mechanisms. Further investigation into the stimulation of lipid droplet synthesis in the lung in response to air pollution is warranted in order to better understand these mechanistic changes and the resulting health implications. Mature male C57BL/6 x CBA F1 hybrid mice were exposed to either HEPA-filtered or ambient air in Hamilton, ON, Canada. Animals were exposed starting May 14, 2004 for 3 weeks (3wk), 10 weeks (10wk), or for 10 weeks followed by 6 weeks of recovery (16wk). Each treatment group consisted of five mice, for a total of 30 mice. Total RNA was isolated from a random section of the whole lung using TRIzol reagent (Invitrogen) and purified using the RNeasy Mini Kit (Qiagen). RNA quality was confirmed by UV spectrophotometry and using an Agilent Bioanalyzer. Total RNA (200 ng) from HEPA-filtered air or whole air-exposed mice and Universal Mouse Reference RNA (Stratagene) were used to synthesize double-stranded cDNA and cyanine-labelled cRNA according to the manufacturer's instructions (Agilent Linear Amplification Kits, Agilent Technologies). Biological samples were labelled with Cy5 dye while the commercially available Stratagene mouse reference RNA was labelled with Cy3 dye. At each of the three time points, ambient air-exposed samples and HEPA-filtered samples were hybridized to Agilent microarrays. Arrays were washed, and scanned on an Agilent G2505B scanner. Data were acquired using the Agilent Feature Extraction software version 9.5.3.1.
2013-09-30 | E-GEOD-41698 | biostudies-arrayexpress
Project description:With increasing population, rapid urbanization, and increased migration to cities, the local impacts of increasing transportation and industrial-related air pollution are of growing concern worldwide. Elevated air pollution concentrations near these types of sources have been linked to adverse health effects including acute and chronic respiratory and cardiovascular diseases. Mobile monitoring has proven to be a useful technique to characterize spatial variability of air pollution in urban areas and pollution concentration gradients from specific sources. A study was conducted in the Kansas City, Kansas (USA) metropolitan area using mobile monitoring to characterize the spatial variability and gradients of air pollutants to identify the contribution of multiple sources on community-level air quality in a complex urban environment. Measurements focused on nitrogen dioxide (NO2), black carbon (BC), and ultrafine particulate matter (UFP). Mobile monitoring showed that median concentrations of these pollutants ranged by up to a factor of three between the communities, with individual measurements ranging over an order of magnitude within the community. Evaluating these air quality measurements with wind direction data highlighted the influence of specific and combinations of air pollution sources on these elevated concentrations, which can provide valuable information to environmental and public health officials in prioritizing and implementing cost-effect air quality management strategies to reduce exposures for urban populations.
| S-EPMC7882077 | biostudies-literature
Project description:BackgroundEvidence linking long-term exposure to particulate air pollution to blood pressure (BP) in high-income countries may not be transportable to low- and middle-income countries. We examined cross-sectional associations between ambient fine particulate matter (PM2.5) and black carbon (BC) with BP (systolic [SBP] and diastolic [DBP]) and prevalent hypertension in adults from 28 peri-urban villages near Hyderabad, India.MethodsWe studied 5531 participants from the Andhra Pradesh Children and Parents Study (18-84 years, 54% men). We measured BP (2010-2012) in the right arm and defined hypertension as SBP ≥130 mmHg and/or DBP ≥80 mmHg. We used land-use regression models to estimate annual average PM2.5 and BC at participant's residence. We applied linear and logistic nested mixed-effect models stratified by sex and adjusted by cooking fuel type to estimate associations between within-village PM2.5 or BC and health.ResultsMean (SD) PM2.5 was 33 µg/m (2.7) and BC was 2.5 µg/m (0.23). In women, a 1 µg/m increase in PM2.5 was associated with 1.4 mmHg higher SBP (95% confidence interval [CI]: 0.12, 2.7), 0.87 mmHg higher DBP (95% CI: -0.18, 1.9), and 4% higher odds of hypertension (95% CI: 0%, 9%). In men, associations with SBP (0.52 mmHg; 95% CI: -0.82, 1.8), DBP (0.41 mmHg; 95% CI: -0.69, 1.5), and hypertension (2% higher odds; 95% CI: -2%, 6%) were weaker. No associations were observed with BC.ConclusionWe observed a positive association between ambient PM2.5 and BP and hypertension in women. Longitudinal studies in this region are needed to corroborate our findings.
| S-EPMC6558270 | biostudies-literature
Project description:The assumption that vegetation improves air quality is prevalent in scientific, popular, and political discourse. However, experimental and modeling studies show the effect of green space on air pollutant concentrations in urban settings is highly variable and context specific. We revisited the link between vegetation and air quality using satellite-derived changes of urban green space and air pollutant concentrations from 2,615 established monitoring stations over Europe and the United States. Between 2010 and 2019, stations recorded declines in ambient NO2, (particulate matter) PM10, and PM2.5 (average of -3.14% y-1), but not O3 (+0.5% y-1), pointing to the general success of recent policy interventions to restrict anthropogenic emissions. The effect size of total green space on air pollution was weak and highly variable, particularly at the street scale (15 to 60 m radius) where vegetation can restrict ventilation. However, when isolating changes in tree cover, we found a negative association with air pollution at borough to city scales (120 to 16,000 m) particularly for O3 and PM. The effect of green space was smaller than the pollutant deposition and dispersion effects of meteorological drivers including precipitation, humidity, and wind speed. When averaged across spatial scales, a one SD increase in green space resulted in a 0.8% (95% CI: -3.5 to 2%) decline in air pollution. Our findings suggest that while urban greening may improve air quality at the borough-to-city scale, the impact is moderate and may have detrimental street-level effects depending on aerodynamic factors like vegetation type and urban form.
| S-EPMC10861851 | biostudies-literature
Project description:Urban outdoor air pollution in the developing world, mostly due to particulate matter with diameters smaller than 2.5 µm (PM2.5), has been highlighted in recent years. It leads to millions of premature deaths. Outdoor air pollution has also been viewed mostly as an urban problem. We use satellite-derived demarcations to parse India's population into urban and nonurban regions, which agrees with the census data. We also use the satellite-derived surface PM2.5 levels to calculate the health impacts in the urban and nonurban regions. We show that outdoor air pollution is just as severe in nonurban regions as in the urban regions of India, with implications to monitoring, regulations, health, and policy.
| S-EPMC7682420 | biostudies-literature
Project description:BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE:The data concerning the association between environmental pollution and epilepsy attacks are limited. The aim of this study was to explore the association between acute air pollution exposure and epilepsy attack. METHODS:A hospital record-based study was carried out in Xi'an, a heavily-polluted metropolis in China. Daily baseline data were obtained. Time-series Poisson regression models were applied to analyze the association between air pollution and epilepsy. RESULTS:A 10 ?g/m3 increase of NO2, SO2, and O3 concentrations corresponded to 3.17% (95%Cl: 1.41%, 4.93%), 3.55% (95%Cl: 1.93%, 5.18%), and -0.84% (95%Cl: -1.58%, 0.09%) increase in outpatient-visits for epilepsy on the concurrent days, which were significantly influenced by sex and age. The effects of NO2 and SO2 would be stronger when adjusted for PM2.5. As for O3, a -1.14% (95%Cl: -1.90%, -0.39%) decrease was evidenced when adjusted for NO2. The lag models showed that the most significant effects were evidenced on concurrent days. CONCLUSIONS:We discovered previously undocumented relationships between short-term air pollution exposure and epilepsy: while NO2 and SO2 were positively associated with outpatient-visits of epilepsy, O3 might be associated with reduced risk.
| S-EPMC5003346 | biostudies-other
Project description:Exposure to urban air pollution affects the apple microbiome
| PRJEB75507 | ENA
Project description:BackgroundRecent studies have shown an association of short-term exposure to fine particulate matter (PM) with transient increases in blood pressure (BP), but it is unclear whether long-term exposure has an effect on arterial BP and hypertension.ObjectivesWe investigated the cross-sectional association of residential long-term PM exposure with arterial BP and hypertension, taking short-term variations of PM and long-term road traffic noise exposure into account.MethodsWe used baseline data (2000-2003) on 4,291 participants, 45-75 years of age, from the Heinz Nixdorf Recall Study, a population-based prospective cohort in Germany. Urban background exposure to PM with aerodynamic diameter ≤ 2.5 μm (PM(2.5)) and ≤ 10 μm (PM(10)) was assessed with a dispersion and chemistry transport model. We used generalized additive models, adjusting for short-term PM, meteorology, traffic proximity, and individual risk factors.ResultsAn interquartile increase in PM2.5 (2.4 μg/m(3)) was associated with estimated increases in mean systolic and diastolic BP of 1.4 mmHg [95% confidence interval (CI): 0.5, 2.3] and 0.9 mmHg (95% CI: 0.4, 1.4), respectively. The observed relationship was independent of long-term exposure to road traffic noise and robust to the inclusion of many potential confounders. Residential proximity to high traffic and traffic noise exposure showed a tendency toward higher BP and an elevated prevalence of hypertension.ConclusionsWe found an association of long-term exposure to PM with increased arterial BP in a population-based sample. This finding supports our hypothesis that long-term PM exposure may promote atherosclerosis, with air-pollution-induced increases in BP being one possible biological pathway.
| S-EPMC3261981 | biostudies-literature