Research Hub

Background: While various policies have been implemented globally to mitigate climate change and reduce exposure to toxic air pollutants, policy assessments have considered few if any of the benefi...

Published Jul 29, 2020

Perera, F., Cooley, D., Berberian, A., Mills, D., & Kinney, P. (2020). Co-Benefits to Children’s Health of the U.S. Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative. Environmental Health Perspectives, 128(7), 077006. https://doi.org/10.1289/EHP6706

Nitrogen dioxide (NO2) is an ambient trace-gas result of both natural and anthropogenic processes. Long-term exposure to NO2 may cause a wide spectrum of severe health problems such as hypertension, diabetes, heart and cardiovascular diseases and even death. The objective of this study is to examine the relationship between long-term exposure to NO2 and coronavirus fatality. The Sentinel-5P is used for mapping the tropospheric NO2 distribution and the NCEP/NCAR reanalysis for evaluating the atmospheric capability to disperse the pollution. The spatial analysis has been conducted on a regional scale and combined with the number of death cases taken from 66 administrative regions in Italy, Spain, France and Germany. Results show that out of the 4443 fatality cases, 3487 (78%) were in five regions located in north Italy and central Spain. Additionally, the same five regions show the highest NO2 concentrations combined with downwards airflow which prevent an efficient dispersion of air pollution. These results indicate that the long-term exposure to this pollutant may be one of the most important contributors to fatality caused by the COVID-19 virus in these regions and maybe across the whole world.

Published Jul 15, 2020

Yaron Ogen, Assessing nitrogen dioxide (NO2) levels as a contributing factor to coronavirus (COVID-19) fatality, Science of The Total Environment, Volume 726, 2020, 138605, ISSN 0048-9697, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2020.138605. (https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0048969720321215)

The present work estimates the increased risk of coronavirus disease (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 by establishing the linkage between the mortality rate in the infected cases and the air pollution, specifically Particulate Matters (PM) with aerodynamic diameters ≤ 10 µm and ≤ 2.5 µm. Data related to nine Asian cities are analyzed using statistical approaches, including the analysis of variance and regression model. The present work suggests that there exists a positive correlation between the level of air pollution of a region and the lethality related to COVID-19, indicating air pollution to be an elemental and concealed factor in aggravating the global burden of deaths related to COVID-19. Past exposures to high level of PM2.5 over a long period, is found to significantly correlate with present COVID-19 mortality per unit reported cases (p < 0.05) compared to PM10, with non-significant correlation (p = 0.118). The finding of the study can help government agencies, health ministries and policymakers globally to take proactive steps by promoting immunity-boosting supplements and appropriate masks to reduce the risks associated with COVID-19 in highly polluted areas.

Published Jul 15, 2020

Gupta, A., Bherwani, H., Gautam, S. et al. Air pollution aggravating COVID-19 lethality? Exploration in Asian cities using statistical models. Environ Dev Sustain 23, 6408–6417 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10668-020-00878-9

Knowledge of whether serious adverse pregnancy outcomes are associated with increasingly widespread effects of climate change in the US would be crucial for the obstetrical medical community and for women and families across the country. This review suggests that increasingly common environmental exposures exacerbated by climate change are significantly associated with serious adverse pregnancy outcomes across the US.

Published Jun 18, 2020

Bekkar, B., Pacheco, S., Basu, R., & DeNicola, N. (2020). Association of Air Pollution and Heat Exposure With Preterm Birth, Low Birth Weight, and Stillbirth in the US. JAMA Network Open, 3(6), e208243. https://doi.org/10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2020.8243

Long-term exposure to air pollutant concentrations is known to cause chronic lung
inflammation, a condition that may promote increased severity of COVID-19 syndrome
caused by the novel coronavirus. In this paper, we empirically investigate the ecologic
association between long-term exposure to fine particulate matter (PM) concentration and
excess deaths in the first quarter of 2020 in municipalities of Northern Italian. The study
accounts for potentially spatial confounding factors related to urbanization that may have
influenced the spreading of the novel coronavirus. Our epidemiological analysis uses
geographical information (e.g., municipalities) and Poisson regression to assess whether
both ambient PM concentration and excess mortality have a similar spatial distribution.
Preliminary evidence confirms the hypothesis and suggests a positive association of ambient
PM on excess mortality in Northern Italy

Published Jun 1, 2020

Coker, E.S., Cavalli, L., Fabrizi, E. et al. The Effects of Air Pollution on COVID-19 Related Mortality in Northern Italy. Environ Resource Econ 76, 611–634 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10640-020-00486-1

Managing patients with severe asthma during the coronavirus pandemic and COVID-19 is a challenge. Authorities and physicians are still learning how COVID-19 affects people with underlying diseases, and severe asthma is not an exception. Unless relevant data emerge that change our understanding of the relative safety of medications indicated in patients with asthma during this pandemic, clinicians must follow the recommendations of current evidence-based guidelines for preventing loss of control and exacerbations. Also, with the absence of data that would indicate any potential harm, current advice is to continue the administration of biological therapies during the COVID-19 pandemic in patients with asthma for whom such therapies are clearly indicated and have been effective. For patients with severe asthma infected by SARS-CoV-2, the decision to maintain or postpone biological therapy until the patient recovers should be a case-by-case based decision supported by a multidisciplinary team. A registry of cases of COVID-19 in patients with severe asthma, including those treated with biologics, will help to address a clinical challenge in which we have more questions than answers.

Published May 16, 2020

Morais-Almeida, M., Aguiar, R., Martin, B., Ansotegui, I. J., Ebisawa, M., Arruda, L. K., Caminati, M., Canonica, G. W., Carr, T., Chupp, G., Corren, J., Dávila, I., Park, H. S., Hanania, N. A., Rosenwasser, L., Sánchez-Borges, M., Virchow, J. C., Yáñez, A., Bernstein, J. A., … Bleecker, E. R. (2020). COVID-19, asthma, and biological therapies: What we need to know. In World Allergy Organization Journal (Vol. 13, Issue 5, p. 100126). Elsevier Inc. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.waojou.2020.100126

African Americans in Louisiana are dying in disproportionate numbers from COVID-19, a novel
coronavirus that attacks the lungs. There is growing concern about the potential for air pollution to
increase COVID-19 susceptibility in Cancer Alley, a heavily industrialized region in southeast Louisiana
with high proportions of African Americans. Recent evidence linked long-term exposure to PM2.5 (a
common pollutant from industrial and other sources) with increased COVID-19 death rates. Yet, PM2.5
exposure has not been evaluated within Cancer Alley parishes (i.e. counties), and there are no recent
studies of pollution in this region, despite an ongoing wave of industrial expansion that began in ~2014.
Here, we explore the relationships among pollution, race, socioeconomic status, and per capita COVID19 death rates (reported through May 12, 2020) in Louisiana, with an emphasis on Cancer Alley. We use
two independent data sources as indicators of pollution burden: 1) long-term (2000 – 2016) average
PM2.5 concentrations from satellite data, and 2) air pollution-related health risk estimates, specifically,
Respiratory Hazard (RH) and Immunological Hazard (IH) from the most recent (2014) U.S. National Air
2
Toxics Assessment. Additionally, we examine changes over time in industrial versus non-industrial PM2.5
emissions since 1990 using the most recent (2017) U.S. National Emissions Inventory, as well as changes
in ground-level PM2.5 concentrations from 2000 – 2018 satellite data. Our goals were to detect potential
disparities in pollution burden or COVID-19 deaths in Louisiana and to identify temporal changes in
PM2.5 pollution across the state.

Published May 14, 2020

Terrell, K., & James, W. (2020). Air Pollution and COVID-19: A Double Whammy for African American and Impoverished Communities in Cancer Alley.

Since late 2019, severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) has infected millions of people worldwide and resulted in more than 200,000 coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) deaths. Emerging data suggest that elderly people as well as individuals with underlying health conditions are at a higher risk of hospitalization and death.1, 2, 3 Interestingly, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s list of risk factors for severe COVID-19 (Fig 1) largely overlap with the list of diseases that are known to be worsened by chronic exposure to air pollution, including diabetes, heart diseases, and chronic airway diseases, such as asthma, lung cancer, and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.3 In this editorial, we highlight potential links between exposure to air pollution and COVID-19 severity, and we also hypothesize that disparate exposure to air pollution is one of the factors that contribute to the disproportionate impact COVID-19 is having on inner-city racial minorities.

Published May 7, 2020

Brandt, E. B., Beck, A. F., & Mersha, T. B. (2020). Air pollution, racial disparities and COVID-19 mortality. In The Journal of allergy and clinical immunology (Vol. 0, Issue 0). NLM (Medline). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jaci.2020.04.035

The COVID-19 virus, also known as the coronavirus, is currently spreading around the world. While a growing literature suggests that exposure to pollution can cause respiratory illness and increase deaths among the elderly, little is known about whether increases in pollution could cause additional or more severe infections from COVID-19, which typically manifests as a respiratory infection. Using variation in pollution induced by a rollback of enforcement of environmental regulations by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and a difference in differences design, we estimate the effects of increased pollution on county-level COVID-19 deaths and cases. Despite popular media coverage to the contrary, we find that counties with more Toxic Release Inventory (TRI) sites saw increases in pollution following the EPA’s rollback of enforcement, while counties with fewer sites saw a smaller increase in pollution. We find that increases in pollution are associated with increases in cases and deaths from COVID-19.

Published May 1, 2020

Persico, C. L., & Johnson, K. R. (2020). Deregulation in a Time of Pandemic: Does Pollution Increase Coronavirus Cases or Deaths? www.iza.org

We investigated the association between outdoor air pollutants exposure in the first trimester of pregnancy, and growth and cardio-metabolic risk at four years of age, and evaluated the mediating role of birth weight. This comprehensive study of many growth and cardio-metabolic risk related outcomes suggests that air pollution exposure during pregnancy may be associated with delays in physical growth in the early years after birth. These findings imply that pregnancy exposure to air pollutants has a lasting effect on growth after birth and require follow-up at later child ages.

Published May 1, 2020

Fossati, S., Valvi, D., Martinez, D., Cirach, M., Estarlich, M., Fernández-Somoano, A., Guxens, M., Iñiguez, C., Irizar, A., Lertxundi, A., Nieuwenhuijsen, M., Tamayo, I., Vioque, J., Tardón, A., Sunyer, J., & Vrijheid, M. (2020). Prenatal air pollution exposure and growth and cardio-metabolic risk in preschoolers. Environment International, 138, 105619. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.envint.2020.105619