Screening Approach for Short-Term PM2.5 Health Co-Benefits: A Case Study from 15 Metropolitan Cities around the World during the COVID-19 Pandemic

Abstract

Fifteen cities across the world have been selected to investigate the public health co-benefits of PM2.5 reduction, during a period when various non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) were adopted in the COVID-19 pandemic. Through applying a public health model, AirQ+, substantial spatial variations of global public health co-benefits were identified. Differences in seasonal air quality and population baselines were key underlying factors. For cities in North America, NPIs were introduced during the low pollution season, generating no co-benefits. On the other hand, tremendous health co-benefits were observed for cities in India and China, due to the high PM2.5 background with a large population. Among all, New Delhi has received the largest co-benefits, which saved over 14,700 premature deaths. As the pollution level (i.e., 45 μg m−3) with NPIs still exceeded the air quality standard, more rigorous emission controls are urgently needed to protect the public′s health in India. At last, a novel and practical tool for co-benefit screening was developed using data from one of the global measurement networks (i.e., IQAir).

Travel behaviour changes under Work-from-home (WFH) arrangements during COVID-19

“…Nonetheless, though a comparison is conducted between the WFH and NWFH participants in this study, it does not mean that only teleworkers can benefit from the WFH arrangement. As negative externalities, such as air pollution, fuel consumption, and carbon emissions, can be alleviated under WFH arrangements ( Lam et al, 2021 , Zhang et al, 2021 ), it is anticipated that the wider community can also benefit from the promotion of WFH. In the future, the impact of WFH arrangements on non-teleworkers may need to be more carefully examined.…”

Two Decades of Air Pollution Health Risk Assessment: Insights From the Use of WHO’s AirQ and AirQ+ Tools

“…Around three-quarters of the studies using either AirQ or AirQ+ focused on research-related questions (Supplementary Figure S4, Supplementary Tables S2, S3), followed by policy planning (2% of studies that used AirQ and 15% for AirQ+), the impact assessment of sand and dust storms in various cities of Iran and Poland (14 studies using either AirQ or AirQ+) [15,[23][24][25][26][27][28][29][30][31][32][33][34][35], and assessment of the impact of COVID-19 on air quality and health (5 studies) [36][37][38][39][40]. Individual studies assessed the impact of AP episodes or extreme events, such as (Indian monsoon [13,31] or large forest fires and megafires in the center region of Portugal [41]), and the use of residential wood combustion in cities of Sweden, Finland, Norway, and Denmark [42].…”

“…All but six studies that applied AirQ did not report which type of AQMSs were used [47,[53][54][55][56][57]. For AirQ+, 74% of the studies (65 out of 88) gathered AAP data from the AQMSs, and only 16 studies reported the types of AQMSs used (Supplementary Tables S2, S3) [25,31,36,39,41,[58][59][60][61][62][63][64][65][66][67][68].…”

DataSheet1.PDF

“…Around three-quarters of the studies using either AirQ or AirQ+ focused on research-related questions (Supplementary Figure S4, Supplementary Tables S2, S3), followed by policy planning (2% of studies that used AirQ and 15% for AirQ+), the impact assessment of sand and dust storms in various cities of Iran and Poland (14 studies using either AirQ or AirQ+) [15,[23][24][25][26][27][28][29][30][31][32][33][34][35], and assessment of the impact of COVID-19 on air quality and health (5 studies) [36][37][38][39][40]. Individual studies assessed the impact of AP episodes or extreme events, such as (Indian monsoon [13,31] or large forest fires and megafires in the center region of Portugal [41]), and the use of residential wood combustion in cities of Sweden, Finland, Norway, and Denmark [42].…”

“…All but six studies that applied AirQ did not report which type of AQMSs were used [47,[53][54][55][56][57]. For AirQ+, 74% of the studies (65 out of 88) gathered AAP data from the AQMSs, and only 16 studies reported the types of AQMSs used (Supplementary Tables S2, S3) [25,31,36,39,41,[58][59][60][61][62][63][64][65][66][67][68].…”