Health and air pollution

We saw in Section 3.6.1 that the acid-laden smoke particles in the London atmosphere caused great harm to human health in the past. Pollutants in the atmosphere still cause concern because of their effect on human health, although today we need to consider a wider range of potentially harmful trace substances. The photochemical smog encountered ever more widely in modern cities gives urban atmospheres that are unlike the smoky air of cities in the past. Petrol as a fuel, unlike coal, produces little smoke. 

Benzene (see Fig. 2.4) is another pollutant component of automotive fuels. It occurs naturally in crude oil and is a useful component because it can prevent pre-ignition in unleaded petrol (the production process is usually adjusted so that the benzene concentration is about 5%). There is evidence that in some locations, where there has been a switch to fuels with high concentrations of aromatic hydrocarbons, there has been a sharp increase in photochemical smog. This is due to the high reactivity of these hydrocarbons in the urban atmosphere. This problem should draw our attention to the way in which the solution of one obvious environmental problem (lead from petrol) may introduce a second rather more subtle problem (i.e. increased photochemical smog from reactive aromatic compounds). 

Benzene is also a potent carcinogen. It appears that more than 10% of the benzene used by society (3 3 M tonne yr-1) is ultimately lost to the atmosphere. High concentrations of benzene can be found in the air of cities and these concentrations may increase the number of cancers. Exposure is complicated by the 

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Samoli, E., Touloumi, G., Schwartz, J., Anderson, H.R., Schindler, C., Forsherg, B., Vigotti, A.M., Vonk, J., Kodnik, M., Skorkovsky, J., Katsouyanni, K. (2007). Short-term effects of carbon monoxide on mortality an analysis within the APHEA (Air Pollution and Health a European Approach) project. Environ. Health Perspect. 115 1578-83. 

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Jing YL (2002) Indoor air pollution and health. In Proceedings of the 1st national symposium on indoor air quality and health. The Chinese Preventive Medicine Society, Beijing, p 16... 

Borai EH, Soliman AA (2001) Monitoring and statistical evaluation of heavy metals in airborne particulates in Cairo, Egypt. J Chromatogr A 920 261-269 Brunekreef B, Holgate ST (2002) Air pollution and health. Lancet 360 1233-1242 Bryant C, Eleftheriadi K, Smolik J et al (2006) Optical juoperties of aerosols over the eastern Mediterranean. Atmos Environ 40 6229-6244... 

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The APHEA (Air Pollution and Health—An European Approach) project studied air-pollution effects in 15 and later with the APHEA 2 project in 34 European cities (Katsouyanni et al. 1995, 1997, 2001). The NMMAPS (National Morbidity, Mortality, and Air Pollution Study) project in the United States focused on time-series analyses of PMio effects on mortality during 1987-1994 in the 90 largest US cities (Samet et al. 2000a, b, c), and in the 20 largest US cities in more detail (Dominici et al. 2000a, b). These data have been summarized in the US-EPA s particulate matter criteria document (US-EPA 2004) and in a met analysis carried out by a WHO-Europe task group (Anderson et al. 2004). 

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