Impact of Lockdown on Social and Mobile Networks During the COVID-19 Epidemic: A Case Study of Uttarakhand
Ram Shringar Raw, Vishal Jain, Sanjoy Das, Meenakshi Sharma in Pandemic Detection and Analysis Through Smart Computing Technologies, 2022
During the COVID-19 lockdown, the government instructed strict guidelines to follow social distancing and stay-at-home restrictions. Public transportation was completely banned and this made a substantial difference in air quality. It has been ascertained that lockdown affected outdoor air pollution and it was declined up to a remarkable level. In India about, 90% of the metropolitan cities had very poor air quality before lockdown, causing many diseases like lung cancer, asthma, heart disease, premature deaths, etc. The particulates, ozone, nitrogen dioxide, Sulfur-dioxide are the major components that cause air pollution. It has been observed that during and just after the lockdown, very lesser amounts of these harmful gases were measured because of the ceased road traffic and closure of smoke emanating factories. According to a study, the lockdown improved air quality index very well in the early days, say from 100 to 61. But as soon as some relaxation was given to the public, it again reached to 71 [33].
Avoiding Risky Substances and Environmental Exposures
Michelle Tollefson, Nancy Eriksen, Neha Pathak in Improving Women's Health Across the Lifespan, 2021
Indoor air quality can be improved by the use of air conditioning, filters, and ventilation; decreasing the sources of fossil fuel combustion sources in homes, like gas stoves; and tobacco smoke cessation. Populations can limit exposure to outdoor pollutants by avoiding outdoor activities during poor air-quality alerts, especially populations that have higher susceptibility including children, pregnant women, and older adults.36 Outdoor air quality can be improved through air pollution mitigation. Air quality sampling, monitoring, and issuing air quality alerts will help vulnerable groups know to limit outdoor activities on poor air quality days. Investing in clean energy will result in less air-harming emissions. Interventions like tree planting can also improve air quality by uptaking pollutants in the air.
The Revised EU Air Quality Policy and Public Health
Stefania Negri in Environmental Health in International and EU Law, 2019
Air pollution can also endanger public health by damaging natural resources and ecosystems.13 Additionally, while it is true that the atmospheric concentrations of some air pollutants, namely toxic metals, is low, these pollutants do not break down in the environment, meaning that they can accumulate in plants and animals, poisoning them through long-term exposure to even small amounts of these substances.14 This process can affect human health via contamination of the food chain.15 Furthermore, some pollutants, including O3 and CH4 are also potent greenhouse gases (GHGs), contributing to the anthropogenically-driven climate change,16 the estimated health effects of which are truly devastating.17
The effects of inhaled pollutants on reproduction in marginalized communities: a contemporary review
Published in Inhalation Toxicology, 2023
Ramsés Santacruz-Márquez, Alison M. Neff, Vasiliki E. Mourikes, Endia J. Fletcher, Jodi A. Flaws
Marginalized communities in North America experience higher rates of certain diseases and more deaths compared to the general population, indicating a profound disparity in health status (National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities 2022). Although several factors place marginalized communities at high risk for poor health outcomes, one important factor is air pollutant exposure. Air pollution is defined as an increase in pollutant substances in the atmosphere due to human activity and natural sources (Mathiarasan and Hüls 2021). Air pollutants derived from human activity include vehicle emissions, fuel oils, gas to heat homes, by-products of manufacturing and power generation, and fumes from chemical production. Natural sources include smoke from wildfires, ash and gases from volcanic eruptions, and gases such as methane that are emitted from decomposing organic matter in soils.
New determinants of mental health: the role of noise pollution. A narrative review
Published in International Review of Psychiatry, 2022
Alfonso Tortorella, Giulia Menculini, Patrizia Moretti, Luigi Attademo, Pierfrancesco Maria Balducci, Francesco Bernardini, Federica Cirimbilli, Anastasia Grazia Chieppa, Nicola Ghiandai, Andreas Erfurth
During the last decades, urbanisation processes and anthropogenic activities contributed to the significant increase in air and noise pollution, which occur predominantly in urban areas (Dijkstra & Poelman, 2014). Air pollution may cause detrimental effects on global health, with a higher risk for developing cardiovascular, neurological, and respiratory diseases (Attademo & Bernardini, 2017; Meng et al., 2021). Similarly, an association between noise pollution and a broad range of medical conditions has been underlined (Liu et al., 2021; Luan et al., 2021; Münzel et al., 2014). In particular, according to the World Health Organisation (WHO) estimates, exposure to traffic-related noise was associated with the loss of 1.5 million years of healthy life, mainly due to sleep disturbances, cognitive problems, and cardiovascular diseases (World Health Organization Regional Office for Europe, 2011). The WHO also established noise level guidelines, which are aimed at protecting human health from the effects of noise coming from different environmental sources (Guski et al., 2017; World Health Organization, 2018). Despite this, efforts to reduce such effects on human health are offset, since an increase in the number of people exposed to high noise levels, especially in urban environments, was documented (European Environment Agency, 2018).
Air Quality Health Index in primary care: A feasibility study
Published in Canadian Journal of Respiratory, Critical Care, and Sleep Medicine, 2022
Ross Upshur, Alan Abelsohn, Anthony D’Urzo, Braden O’Neill, Farhan M. Asrar, Seyed Behnam Hashemi, Sheena Melwani, Babak Aliarzadeh
Many studies have shown associations between short-term exposure to air pollutants and adverse health effects.7 In Canada, the Air Quality Health Index (AQHI) was developed to report on air quality in relationship to potential health risks.8 AQHI is constructed as the sum of excess mortality risk associated with individual pollutants and mortality in Canadian cities, adjusted to a 0–10 scale, and is reported as both the current air quality as well as a “forecast” for the subsequent day.8 In order to calculate the AQHI, the concentration of 3 pollutants are measured: nitrogen dioxide (NO2), Ozone at ground level (O3) and particulate matter with a diameter of less than 2.5 micrometers (PM2.5). Informing at-risk individuals about poor air quality conditions might serve to limit exposure and ultimately could minimize the risk of negative health effects as they could modify and adjust their day-to-day activities strategically.7
Related Knowledge Centers
- Acid Rain
- Ammonia
- Biomolecule
- Carbon Monoxide
- Chlorofluorocarbon
- Methane
- Ozone Depletion
- Sulfur Dioxide
- Biological Agent
- Particulates