How air pollution impacts health
"Air quality monitoring and measurement are critical for public health, says Yanelli Nunez, a postdoctoral research scientist at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health.
She notes that robust studies have shown that air pollution contributes to lung cancer, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, and lower respiratory infections, and even impacts mortality, pregnancy outcomes and cardiovascular disease.
Nunez works in an environmental health sciences laboratory with Marianthi-Anna Kioumourtzoglou. Their research has also found long-term exposure to air pollution can affect the nervous system and may influence functions such as memory or cognitive capabilities.
The scientists wrote in an e-mail to CNBC: “Americans living in poor air quality areas tend to be people of color or low-income communities. We are finally starting to pay more attention to these issues, which hopefully will lead to change. The air pollution composition is also changing.”
In one example, greenhouse gas emissions from transportation declined in New York City from 2014 to 2017, while commercial cooking emissions rose.
With increased wildfires, the scientists wrote, “The sources and composition of the air pollution mixture that we are experiencing could differently impact our health, so we need to better understand source-specific effects, especially for these newly prominent sources.”
Indoor air matters, too
While outdoor air quality is important, society doesn’t talk or do enough about indoor air quality, said Richard Corsi, UC Davis’ incoming dean of the college of engineering, currently a professor and dean at Portland State University.
Using pre-pandemic numbers, Corsi explained that the average American would spend almost 70 out of 79 years of their life domiciled inside of buildings. “Because we spend so much time indoors, even our exposure to pollutants of outdoor origin is dominated by what we breathe there, especially in our homes,” he said.
Pollutants of outdoor origin which come from the likes of internal combustion engine vehicles, photochemical smog, refineries and wildfires can get into homes and buildings when doors and windows are opened, when heat and air conditioning systems are used, or through other cracks in the building envelope.
Consumer apps and devices today don’t give users an absolute, precise measurement down to micrograms per cubic meter of a given pollutant, Corsi noted. But they’re very valuable for spotting trends and relative changes in air quality.
Sensors set up indoors can work well to check whether protective measures are working to improve the air inside of a house, school or other building.
Especially during wildfire season, Corsi said, some other simple actions that can protect or improve air quality indoors include: wet-mopping floors and wiping surfaces so pollutants don’t accumulate, using HEPA or high-efficiency particulate air filters, and increasing the MERV or minimum efficiency reporting value of filters in central air systems in a house."
Source:
https://www.cnbc.com/2021/08/08/apps-to-track-air-pollution-aircare-airnow-airvisual-breezometer.html
Vocabulary:
Verbs:
monitor: quản lý, giám sát
impact: tác động
tend to: có xu hướng
lead to: dẫn đến, hướng đến
spend (so much time): dành (nhiều thời gian)
dominate /ˈdɒm.ɪ.neɪt/: kiểm soát, chiếm lĩnh
experience: trải qua
improve: cải thiện, tăng
protect: bảo vệ
increase: tăng
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