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Outdoor Air Pollution and the Burden of Childhood Asthma across Europe

Haneen Khreis, Marta Cirach, Natalie Mueller, Kees de Hoogh, Gerard Hoek, Mark J. Nieuwenhuijsen, David Rojas-Rueda
European Respiratory Journal 2019; DOI: 10.1183/13993003.02194-2018
Haneen Khreis
1Center for Advancing Research in Transportation Emissions, Energy, and Health (CARTEEH), Texas A&M Transportation Institute (TTI), Texas, USA
2ISGlobal, Centre for Research in Environmental Epidemiology (CREAL), Barcelona, Spain
3Universitat Pompeu Fabra (UPF), Barcelona, Spain
4CIBER Epidemiologia y Salud Publica (CIBERESP), Madrid, Spain
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  • For correspondence: h-khreis@tti.tamu.edu
Marta Cirach
2ISGlobal, Centre for Research in Environmental Epidemiology (CREAL), Barcelona, Spain
3Universitat Pompeu Fabra (UPF), Barcelona, Spain
4CIBER Epidemiologia y Salud Publica (CIBERESP), Madrid, Spain
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Natalie Mueller
2ISGlobal, Centre for Research in Environmental Epidemiology (CREAL), Barcelona, Spain
3Universitat Pompeu Fabra (UPF), Barcelona, Spain
4CIBER Epidemiologia y Salud Publica (CIBERESP), Madrid, Spain
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Kees de Hoogh
5Swiss Tropical and Public Health Institute, Basel, Switzerland
6University of Basel, Basel, Switzerland
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Gerard Hoek
7Division of Environmental Epidemiology, Institute for Risk Assessment Sciences, Utrecht University, Utrecht, Netherlands
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Mark J. Nieuwenhuijsen
2ISGlobal, Centre for Research in Environmental Epidemiology (CREAL), Barcelona, Spain
3Universitat Pompeu Fabra (UPF), Barcelona, Spain
4CIBER Epidemiologia y Salud Publica (CIBERESP), Madrid, Spain
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David Rojas-Rueda
2ISGlobal, Centre for Research in Environmental Epidemiology (CREAL), Barcelona, Spain
3Universitat Pompeu Fabra (UPF), Barcelona, Spain
8Environmental and Radiological Health Sciences, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, USA
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Abstract

Background Emerging evidence suggests that air pollution may contribute to childhood asthma development. We estimated the burden of incident childhood asthma that may be attributable to outdoor NO2, PM2.5 and black carbon (BC) in Europe.

Methods We combined country-level childhood incidence rates and pooled exposure-response functions with children's (1–14 years) counts, and exposure estimates at 1 540 386 1 km×1 km cells, across 18 European countries and 63 442 419 children. Annual average pollutant concentrations were obtained from a validated and harmonised European land-use regression (LUR) model. We investigated two exposure reduction scenarios. For the first, we used recommended annual World Health Organization (WHO) air quality guideline values. For the second, we used the minimum air pollution levels recorded across 41 studies in the underlying meta-analysis.

Results NO2 ranged from 1.4 to 70.0 µg·m−3, with a mean of 11.8 µg·m−3. PM2.5 ranged from 2.0 to 41.1 µg·m−3, with a mean of 11.6 µg·m−3. BC ranged from 0.003 to 3.7×10−5m−1, with a mean of 1.0×10−5m−1. Compliance with the NO2 and PM2.5 WHO guidelines, respectively, was estimated to prevent 2434 (0.4%) and 66 567 (11%) incident cases. Meeting the minimum air pollution levels for NO2 (1.5 µg·m−3), PM2.5 (0.4 µg·m−3) and BC (0.4×10−5m−1), respectively, was estimated to prevent 135 257 (23%), 191 883 (33%) and 89 191 (15%) incident cases.

Conclusions A significant proportion of childhood asthma cases may be attributable to outdoor air pollution, and these cases could be prevented. Our estimates underline an urgent need to reduce children's exposure to air pollution.

Footnotes

This manuscript has recently been accepted for publication in the European Respiratory Journal. It is published here in its accepted form prior to copyediting and typesetting by our production team. After these production processes are complete and the authors have approved the resulting proofs, the article will move to the latest issue of the ERJ online. Please open or download the PDF to view this article.

Conflict of interest: Dr. Khreis has nothing to disclose.

Conflict of interest: Dr. Cirach Pradas has nothing to disclose.

Conflict of interest: Dr. Mueller has nothing to disclose.

Conflict of interest: Dr. de Hoogh has nothing to disclose.

Conflict of interest: Dr. Hoek has nothing to disclose.

Conflict of interest: Dr. Nieuwenhuijsen has nothing to disclose.

Conflict of interest: Dr. Rojas-Rueda has nothing to disclose.

This is a PDF-only article. Please click on the PDF link above to read it.

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Outdoor Air Pollution and the Burden of Childhood Asthma across Europe
Haneen Khreis, Marta Cirach, Natalie Mueller, Kees de Hoogh, Gerard Hoek, Mark J. Nieuwenhuijsen, David Rojas-Rueda
European Respiratory Journal Jan 2019, 1802194; DOI: 10.1183/13993003.02194-2018

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Outdoor Air Pollution and the Burden of Childhood Asthma across Europe
Haneen Khreis, Marta Cirach, Natalie Mueller, Kees de Hoogh, Gerard Hoek, Mark J. Nieuwenhuijsen, David Rojas-Rueda
European Respiratory Journal Jan 2019, 1802194; DOI: 10.1183/13993003.02194-2018
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