Cardiovascular and respiratory mortality attributed to ground-level ozone in Ahvaz, Iran

Abstract

Ahvaz, the capital city of Khuzestan Province, which produces Iran's most oil, is on the rolls of fame in view of air pollution. It has also suffered from dust storm during the recent two decades. So, emissions from transportation systems, steel, oil, black carbon, and other industries as anthropogenic sources and dust storm as a new phenomenon are two major concerns of air pollution in Ahvaz. Without any doubt, they can cause many serious problems for the environment and humans in this megacity. The main objective of the present study was to estimate the impact of ground-level ozone (GLO) as a secondary pollutant on human heath. Data of GLO in four monitoring stations were collected at the first step and they were processed and at the final step they were inserted to a health effect model. Findings showed that cumulative cases of cardiovascular and respiratory deaths which attributed to GLO were 43 and 173 persons, respectively. Corresponding RR for these two events were 1.008 (95% CI) and 1.004 (95% CI), respectively. Although we did not provide a distinction between winter and summer in case of mentioned mortalities attributed to GLO, ozone concentrations in winter due to more fuel consumption and sub adiabatic condition in tropospheric atmospherewere higher than those GLO in summer.

Spatiotemporal Patterns of Ozone and Cardiovascular and Respiratory Disease Mortalities Due to Ozone in Shenzhen

“…Some other studies, using human volunteers, identified that exposure to ozone could cause adverse systemic inflammation and cardiac autonomic effects through changes in heart rate variability and C-reactive protein, and thus contribute to cardiovascular mortality [7,10]. Though the mechanism is not conclusive yet, elevated ozone concentration could lead to respiratory and cardiovascular diseases according to many epidemiological studies [2][3][4][32][33][34][35]. Our study came to a similar conclusion, with identified susceptible groups being the elderly and males.…”

Hydatid Cyst Epidemiology in Khuzestan, Iran: A 15-year Evaluation

“…Khuzestan province has an area of 63,238 km 2 . Ahvaz is the capital of this province and it is located in the Middle East, between 48°and 29' east of the Greenwich meridian, 31°and 45' minutes north of the equator (20)(21)(22)(23)(24)(25)(26)(27)(28)(29). The location of Khuzestan province in the southwest of Iran is presented in Figure 1.…”

An evaluation of hospital admission respiratory disease attributed to sulfur dioxide ambient concentration in Ahvaz from 2011 through 2013

“…Ahvaz city, with a population of 1 million approximately, the capital of Khuzestan province is located between 48 to 49°and 29 min of the eastern longitude in the Greenwich meridian and 30 to 32°and 45 min of the northern latitude from the equator (Dobaradaran et al 2016;Geravandi et al 2015d;Goudarzi et al 2015a;Zallaghi et al 2014b).…”