Evaluation of Public Health Impacts Related to Urban Air Pollution in Shiraz and Bushehr, Iran



Arfaeinia H^{1, 2} ; Moradi M^{2, 3} ; Sharafi K^{3, 4} ; Esfahani NM³ ; Dobaradaran S^{1, 5, 6} Show Affiliations
Source: International Journal of Pharmacy and Technology Published:2015

Abstract

The objective of this work was assessing the health-endpoints of short-term exposure to the air pollutants including PM10, O3, SO2, NO2 and CO in Shiraz and Bushehr, Iran in 2013-2014. The approach suggested by the World Health Organization (WHO) was utilized using the AirQ2.2.3 software developed by the WHO European Centre for Environment and Health, Bilthoven Division. The main disadvantage of this approach was that the relative risks (RRs) and baseline incidences (BIs) which were used in this software belong to European countries, so, in part I of this study, local RRs and BIs were determined using generalized additive models. In part II, different concentrations of air pollutants were used to assess human exposure and health impacts in terms of attributable proportion of the health outcome, annual number of excess cases of mortality for all causes, and cardiovascular and respiratory diseases. The annual average of PM10, SO2, NO2 and O3 in Shiraz were 126.47, 73.92, 63.10, 75.97μg/m3, respectively, while the annual average of PM10, SO2, NO2 and O3 in Bushehr were 143.7, 56.08, 47.23, 51.09μg/m3. Regarding short-term endpoints, PM10 had the most important health effect on inhabitants in both cities, causing an excess of total mortality of 634 and 147 cases in a year, respectively. Also the effect of SO2, NO2 and O3 on total mortality was an excess of about, respectively, about 431(112), 367(87) and 213(67) cases in year for Shiraz (Bushehr). AirQ software has been proved to be a valid and reliable tool to estimate the potential short term effects of air pollution and special attention was required choosing the relative risks to be utilized © 2015, International Journal of Pharmacy and Technology. All rights Reserved.