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Particulate air pollution and cardiovascular disease – it is time to take it seriously

  • Bin Jalaludin EMAIL logo and Christine Cowie
Published/Copyright: February 19, 2014
Reviews on Environmental Health
From the journal Reviews on Environmental Health Volume 29 Issue 1-2

Abstract

Worldwide, there were over 3 million deaths attributable to exposure to excessive levels of particulate air pollution in 2010. This is similar to the number of deaths attributable to high blood sugar (3.4 million) but less than the number of deaths attributed to smoking (5.7 million) and excessive alcohol consumption (5.0 million). Globally, ambient particulate air pollution was the ninth leading cause of premature deaths, and most of the disease attributable to exposure to ambient particulate air pollution is cardiovascular disease. Short-term and long-term exposures to outdoor particulate matter pollution are associated with a range of adverse cardiovascular health effects such as heart rate variability, development of atherosclerosis, myocardial ischemia, myocardial infarction, stroke, and deaths. Despite this, there is not the same recognition of particulate air pollution as an important risk factor for cardiovascular disease morbidity and mortality compared to the more established risk factors such as cigarette smoking and hypertension. It is now time to reevaluate the contribution of particulate air pollution to cardiovascular disease.

Keywords: cardiovascular disease; particulate air pollution; risk factors
Corresponding author: Bin Jalaludin, Centre for Research, Evidence Management and Surveillance, Sydney and South Western Sydney Local Health Districts, Sydney, Australia; Centre for Air quality and Health Research and Evaluation (CAR), Sydney, Australia; and School of Public Health and Community Medicine, University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia, E-mail:

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Received: 2014-1-17
Accepted: 2014-1-17
Published Online: 2014-2-19
Published in Print: 2014-4-1

©2014 by Walter de Gruyter Berlin/Boston

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  2. Editorial
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  10. Remediation of mercury-contaminated soil – a case study
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  29. Modeling the emission, transport and deposition of contaminated dust from a mine tailing site
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https://doi.org/10.1515/reveh-2014-0031
Keywords for this article
cardiovascular disease; particulate air pollution; risk factors

Articles in the same Issue

  1. Frontmatter
  2. Editorial
  3. The Pacific Basin Consortium for Environment and Health
  4. Environmental Exposures in Indigenous Communities
  5. Environmental exposure in indigenous communities: an international perspective
  6. Novel materials for environmental remediation of oil sands contaminants
  7. Metals
  8. Long-term health consequences of prenatal arsenic exposure: links to the genome and the epigenome
  9. Health hazards and mitigation of chronic poisoning from arsenic in drinking water: Taiwan experiences
  10. Remediation of mercury-contaminated soil – a case study
  11. Bioaccessibility, release kinetics, and molecular speciation of arsenic and lead in geo-dusts from the Iron King Mine Federal Superfund site in Humboldt, Arizona
  12. Mercury poisoning dentistry: high-level indoor air mercury contamination at selected dental sites
  13. Hazardous Waste
  14. New approaches and insights into bioremediation of hazardous waste
  15. Modeling the emission sources for polychlorinated biphenyls in India: implications for human health risk assessment
  16. Microorganism-assisted phytoremediation of heavy metal and endosulfan contaminated soil
  17. Chemicals: friends and foes
  18. Spatial distribution of persistent organic pollutants in the surface water of River Brahmaputra and River Ganga in India
  19. Hexachlorocyclohexane: persistence, toxicity and decontamination
  20. E-waste: impacts, issues and management strategies
  21. Water
  22. Clean water and sanitation in developing areas lacking conventional power
  23. Striving for success in sanitation, hygiene, and water supply
  24. Solar membrane distillation: desalination for the Navajo Nation
  25. Climate change and managing water crisis: Pakistan’s perspective
  26. Effective utilization of waste water through recycling, reuse, and remediation for sustainable agriculture
  27. Mining
  28. Socially responsible mining: the relationship between mining and poverty, human health and the environment
  29. Modeling the emission, transport and deposition of contaminated dust from a mine tailing site
  30. Coal mine drainage sludge and its application for treating metallic mine effluent
  31. Emerging Issues in the Pacific Basin
  32. Nanotechnology and toxicology
  33. Nanotoxicology and nanotechnology: new findings from the NIEHS and Superfund Research Program scientific community
  34. Nanotechnology in environmental remediation: degradation of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) over visible-light-active nanostructured materials
  35. Combating infectious diseases in the Pacific Islands: sentinel surveillance, environmental health, and geospatial tools
  36. Projected health impacts of heat events in Washington State associated with climate change
  37. Community-based approaches to environmental health research around the globe
  38. Air Pollution
  39. Particulate air pollution and cardiovascular disease – it is time to take it seriously
  40. Chemical exposure and respiratory health of children in an industrial setting
  41. Fine particles characterization in residential homes located in different microenvironment of India
  42. Respiratory health risk assessment of children living close to industrial areas in Indonesia
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