<p>Association Between Ambient Air Pollution and Elevated Risk of Tuberculosis Development</p>

Abstract

BackgroundBroad-scale evidence has shown the significant association between ambient air pollutants and the development of tuberculosis (TB). However, the impact of air quality on the risk of TB in Taiwan is still poorly understood.ObjectiveTo develop a probabilistic integrated population-level risk assessment approach for evaluating the contribution of ambient air pollution exposure to the risk of TB development among different regions of Taiwan.Materials and methodsA Bayesian-based probabilistic risk assessment model was implemented to link exposure concentrations of various air pollutants quantified in a probabilistic manner with the population-based exposure-response models developed by using an epidemiological investigation.ResultsThe increment of the risk of TB occurred in a region with a higher level of air pollution, indicating a strong relationship between ambient air pollution exposures and TB incidences. Carbon monoxide (CO) exposure showed the highest population attributable fraction (PAF), followed by nitrogen oxides (NOX) and nitrogen dioxide (NO2) exposures. In a region with higher ambient air pollution, it is most likely (80% risk probability) that the contributions of CO exposure to development of TB were 1.6–12.2% (range of median PAFs), whereas NOX and NO2 exposures contributed 1.2–9.8% to developing TB.ConclusionOur findings provide strong empirical support for the hypothesis and observations from the literature that poor air quality is highly likely to link aetiologically to the risk of TB. Therefore, substantial reductions in CO, NOX, and NO2 exposures are predicted to have health benefits to susceptible and latently infected individuals that provide complementary mitigation efforts in reducing the burden of TB. Considering that people continue to be exposed to both TB bacilli and ambient air pollutants, our approach can be applied for different countries/regions to identify which air pollutants contribute to a higher risk of TB in order to develop potential mitigation programs.

Short-term Effect of Ambient Air Pollutants Change on the Risk of Tuberculosis Outpatient Visits: A Time-series Study in Fuyang, China

“…Our study showed a positive correlation between NO2 and TB, two time series studies in Chengdu and Hefei also reached similar conclusions (Zhu and Xia et al, 2018;Huang and Ding et al, 2020). A study in Taiwan has shown that NO2 is associated with tuberculosis which contributed 1.2-9.8% to developing TB (Lin and Lin et al, 2019).…”

Association of Single Nucleotide Polymorphism rs17580 with Smoking and Pulmonary Tuberculosis

“…If the host organism has a reduced ability to clear and limit infection with Mycobacterium tuberculosis , it is highly susceptible to infection with the bacteria. It has been suggested that lifestyles, work environment, and outdoor air quality may have a certain impact on the health of the host [ 3 , 4 ], especially smoking and passive smoking in a closed environment can not only reduce the resistance of the respiratory organs, making it easy for harmful microorganisms such as Mycobacterium tuberculosis to invade the lungs and make tuberculosis more likely to occur, causing bacteria or viruses infection while the resistance of the respiratory organs is further reduced, making TB more difficult to cure [ 5 , 6 ]. Studies have found that differences in human genetic polymorphisms may lead to differential susceptibility to TB [ 7 ], and susceptible individuals must pay more attention to lung protection and screening.…”

An Opportunity to END TB: Using the Sustainable Development Goals for Action on Socio-Economic Determinants of TB in High Burden Countries in WHO South-East Asia and the Western Pacific Regions

“…Interventions such as clean cook stoves to reduce the adverse effects of indoor air pollution merit rigorous evaluation [50], particularly in high TB burden countries in Asia and the Pacific, where the prevalence of both indoor air pollution and TB is high. Clean energy is also expected to reduce outdoor air pollution and improve ambient air quality, which can reduce the risk of TB [55].…”