Health impacts and burden of disease attributed to long-term exposure to atmospheric PM10/PM2.5 in Karaj, Iran: Effect of meteorological factors

Background: There are sporadic researches on evaluating the health endpoints andburden of disease resulted from long-term exposure to atmospheric PM10/PM2.5 by AirQ+model in the world. Therefore, the aim of the current work was to evaluate the effect ofPM10/PM2.5 on health of residents in Karaj city, Iran using AirQ+.Material and Methods: To this end, data on population, the baseline incidence rates ofhealth outcomes in Karaj’s inhabitants, meteorological parameters and PM10/PM2.5concentrations (from 2012-2016) were obtained from governmental organizations. Thecorrelation between the PM10/PM2.5 levels and meteorological parameters in the researchperiod were evaluated by statistical analysis using SPSS® 22 and R software. Finally, thehealth endpoints and disease burden was estimated using WHO-approved AirQ+ software.Results: The results of statistical correlation analysis indicated that PM2.5/PM10 arepositively correlated with relative humidity and temperature (P < 0.05), but the negativelycorrelated with other two parameters (precipitation and wind speed) (P > 0.05). Thequantitative risk assessment conducted by AirQ+ showed that all-cause deaths, the deathsfrom cerebrovascular disease (stroke), chronic obstructive pulmonary diseases (COPD),lung cancer (LC), ischemic heart disease (IHD) and acute lower respiratory infection(ALRI) in periods of time 2012-2016 were estimated 3894, 1834, 124, 139, 2410 and 21cases, respectively. On the other hand, PM10-attributable mortality from 2012 to 2016were estimated 1619 cases.Conclusions: The findings obtained from of the regression correlation analysis relationshipbetween PM2.5 concentrations and the number of mortality revealed that by increasing 1μg/m3in PM2.5 concentrations, about 14 cases will be added to the total deaths of Karaj city.

Keywords:

PM10/PM2.5 , Long-term exposure , AirQ+ , Health impacts , Burden of disease , Karaj