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Applying the concept of 'number needed to treat' to the formulation of daily ambient air quality standards
- Source :
- Chemosphere. 222:665-670
- Publication Year :
- 2019
- Publisher :
- Elsevier BV, 2019.
-
Abstract
- The World Health Organization sets up the Ambient Air Quality Guidelines mainly based on short-term and long-term health effects of air pollution. Previous studies, however, have generally revealed a non-threshold concentration-response relationship between air pollution and health, making it difficult to determine a concentration, below which no obvious health effects can be observed. Here we proposed a novel approach based on the concept of “number needed to treat”, specifically, we calculated the reduction in air pollution concentrations needed to avoid one death corresponding to different hypothetical concentration standards; the one with the smallest value would be the most practical concentration standard. As an example, we applied this approach to the daily standard of ambient PM2.5 (particulate matter with aerodynamic diameter ≤2.5 μm) in four Chinese cities. The calculation was based on the association between daily mortality and ambient PM2.5, which was examined by a generalized additive model with adjustment of important covariates. Significant associations were observed between PM2.5 and mortality. Our analyses suggested that it is appropriate to have 50 μg/m3 as the daily standard of ambient PM2.5 for the study area, compared to the current standard of which were directly adopted from the national standard of 75 μg/m3. This novel approach should be considered when planning and/or revising the ambient air quality guidelines/standards.
- Subjects :
- China
Environmental Engineering
Health, Toxicology and Mutagenesis
media_common.quotation_subject
0208 environmental biotechnology
Air pollution
02 engineering and technology
010501 environmental sciences
World Health Organization
medicine.disease_cause
01 natural sciences
World health
Air Pollution
Statistics
Covariate
medicine
Humans
Environmental Chemistry
Quality (business)
Cities
Mortality
0105 earth and related environmental sciences
media_common
Generalized additive model
Public Health, Environmental and Occupational Health
General Medicine
General Chemistry
Particulates
Pollution
020801 environmental engineering
Ambient air
Number needed to treat
Environmental science
Particulate Matter
Subjects
Details
- ISSN :
- 00456535
- Volume :
- 222
- Database :
- OpenAIRE
- Journal :
- Chemosphere
- Accession number :
- edsair.doi.dedup.....fcb5d8c417a3e0e5cb76219d06269849