TY - JOUR T1 - The continuing challenge of air pollution JF - European Respiratory Journal JO - Eur Respir J SP - 704 LP - 705 DO - 10.1183/09031936.00081910 VL - 36 IS - 4 AU - B. Brunekreef Y1 - 2010/10/01 UR - http://erj.ersjournals.com/content/36/4/704.abstract N2 - Once a severe but local problem of highly industrialised and densely populated cities, air pollution has now morphed into a more insidious threat to the public health of entire nations. Smoke from domestic coal fires, power plants and heavy industry has largely vanished from our skies. This has been achieved through the use of clean fuels, filtration of flue gases, improvements in process technology, and export of the most polluting industries to countries with lower wages and less pollution control. At the same time, motor vehicle transport has increased enormously and other sources of air pollution, such as intensive livestock farming, have emerged. Pollution is transported over long distances and secondary pollutants such as ozone are formed through photochemical reactions. The erstwhile distinctions between “dirty” cities and the “clean” countryside have become blurred as a result, and nowadays a much larger fraction of the population is exposed to some form or level of hazardous air pollution than 50 yrs … ER -