Air pollution in pristina, influence on cardiovascular hospital morbidity

Air Pollution in Kosovo: Short Term Effects on Hospital Visits of Children Due to Respiratory Health Diagnoses

The Republic of Kosovo is a small country in the Balkans. The capital city of Pristina hosts most of its population and is situated in a mountain basin with poor air exchange, especially during winter. Domestic heating, road transport, industry and coal-fired power plants contribute to high levels of air pollution. We performed a time-series analysis on effects of particulate air pollution (PM2.5) on respiratory health of children and adolescents, using hospital admission and ambulatory visit numbers from the pediatric university clinic. From 2018 until 2020, daily mean concentrations of PM2.5 ranged between 2.41 and 161.03 µg/m³. On average, there were 6.7 ambulatory visits per day with lower numbers on weekends and during the first COVID-19 wave in 2020. An increase in PM2.5 led to an immediate increase in visit numbers that lasted over several days. Averaged over a full week, this amounted to about a 1% increase per 10 µg/m³. There were, on average, 1.7 hospital admissions per day. Two and three days after a rise in air pollution, there was also a rise in admission numbers, followed by a decline during the consecutive days. This might indicate that the wards were overstressed because of high admission numbers and restricted additional admissions.

Statistical analysis of atmospheric deposition of heavy metals in Kosovo using the terrestrial mosses method

Heavy metals presence in the air in the territory of Kosovo was estimated using mosses as biomonitors. The periodic smog over the territory of Kosovo, particularly around industrial sites and cities, is a clear indication of air pollution which unavoidably will contain heavy metals, because of the nature of the industries in area. This work was carried out aming to assess the presence of heavy metals in the air, identify the most polluted sites, and the origins of pollution. Heavy metals such as Al, Cd, Cr, Cu, Fe, Ni, Pb, and Zn, were determined in 45 moss samples. Statistical analysis was performed to better explain the data. The most polluted sites appeared to be in Zveqan, Stanterg, Prapashticë, Siboc, and Lupç. The contamination factor (CF) showed that only Cu and Zn had no or almost no contamination levels over the range of moss samples with CF < 1, while Cd and Pb gave extremely high values, CF > 27. Pollution load index (PLI) also showed that only a few samples are moderately polluted 2 < PLI ≤ 3, while most of the samples appeared to be highly polluted 4 < PLI ≤ 5, and very highly polluted PLI > 5.

The modification effect of temperature on the relationship between air pollutants and daily incidence of influenza in Ningbo, China

Background

Although exposure to air pollution has been linked to many health issues, few studies have quantified the modification effect of temperature on the relationship between air pollutants and daily incidence of influenza in Ningbo, China.

Methods

The data of daily incidence of influenza and the relevant meteorological data and air pollution data in Ningbo from 2014 to 2017 were retrieved. Low, medium and high temperature layers were stratified by the daily mean temperature with 25th and 75th percentiles. The potential modification effect of temperature on the relationship between air pollutants and daily incidence of influenza in Ningbo was investigated through analyzing the effects of air pollutants stratified by temperature stratum using distributed lag non-linear model (DLNM). Stratified analysis by sex and age were also conducted.

Results

Overall, a 10 μg/m³ increment of O₃, PM_2.5, PM₁₀ and NO₂ could increase the incidence risk of influenza with the cumulative relative risk of 1.028 (95% CI 1.007, 1.050), 1.061 (95% CI 1.004, 1.122), 1.043 (95% CI 1.003, 1.085), and 1.118 (95% CI 1.028, 1.216), respectively. Male and aged 7–17 years were more sensitive to air pollutants. Through the temperature stratification analysis, we found that temperature could modify the impacts of air pollution on daily incidence of influenza with high temperature exacerbating the impact of air pollutants. At high temperature layer, male and the groups aged 0–6 years and 18–64 years were more sensitive to air pollution.

Conclusion

Temperature modified the relationship between air pollution and daily incidence of influenza and high temperature would exacerbate the effects of air pollutants in Ningbo.

Supplementary Information

The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s12931-021-01744-6.

Ambient air pollution and daily hospital admissions for cardiovascular diseases in Arak, Iran

BACKGROUND

Outdoor air pollution has been considered as one of the most serious health concerns over the last decade. This study aimed to investigate the association between ambient air pollution and cardiovascular hospital admissions.

METHODS

This investigation was carried out from January 1, 2010 to December 31, 2015, in the urban population of Arak, Iran. Daily records of concentrations of air pollutants including particulate matter less than 10 µm (PM10), nitrogen dioxide (NO2), particulate matter less than 2.5 µm (PM2.5), ozone (O3), carbon monoxide (CO), and sulfur dioxide (SO2) as well as the daily number of hospital admissions due to cardiovascular disease were inquired from the Arak Department of Environment and two major hospitals, respectively. Time-series regression analysis was used to evaluate the effect of the pollutants on cardiovascular hospital admissions with different lag structures, controlling for weather variables, seasonality and long-term time trends, and day of the week.

RESULTS

Each 10 µg/m3 increase in PM10 and NO2 and 1 mg/m3 increase in CO concentrations at lag 0 (day) were significantly associated with an increase of 0.7% (P = 0.004), 3.3% (P = 0.006), and 9.4% (P < 0.001), respectively in overall cardiovascular hospital admissions. The elderly were more susceptible than those under 60 years to exposure to the pollutants (especially NO2) with regard to cardiovascular hospital admission.

CONCLUSION

The results of this study showed that hospital admission for cardiovascular disease is partly related to the levels of ambient air pollutions in Arak. Susceptibility to air pollutants varies by age groups and sex.

Cyto- and genotoxic potential of water samples from polluted areas in Kosovo

Reports on the state of the environment in Kosovo have emphasized that river and ground water quality is affected by pollution from untreated urban water as well as the waste water from the industry. One of the main contributors to this pollution is located in Obiliq (coal power plants). Prishtina-the capital city of Kosovo-is heavily influenced too. Furthermore, the pollutants combined together with those from heavy traffic are dissolved in Prishtina runoff water, which is discharged into the creek entering the river Sitnica together with urban waste water. The available data show the complex pollution with excessive quantities of nitrites, suspended materials, organic compounds, detergents, heavy metals, polychlorinated biphenyls, etc. In this study, the cytotoxic and genotoxic potential of water samples taken at these sites was tested in primary rat hepatocytes. The results obtained indicate that water samples collected in Prishtina and Obiliq had a significant cytotoxic potential in primary rat hepatocyte cultures even when diluted to 1 %. The increased cytotoxicity, however, was not accompanied by an increased genotoxicity as measured by the percentage of micronucleated cells. Further investigations addressing the chemical composition of the samples and the identification of the toxicants responsible for the cytotoxic effects found will be carried out in a next step.

Biological Monitoring of Air Pollutants and Its Influence on Human Beings

Monitoring air pollutants via plants is an economic, convenient and credible method compared with the traditional ways. Plants show different damage symptoms to different air pollutants, which can be used to determine the species of air pollutants. Besides, pollutants mass concentration scope can be estimated by the damage extent of plants and the span of polluted time. Based on the domestic and foreign research, this paper discusses the principles, mechanism, advantages and disadvantages of plant-monitoring, and exemplifies plenty of such plants and the minimum mass concentration and pollution time of the plants showing damage symptoms. Finally, this paper introduced the human health effects of air pollutants on immune function of the body, such as decrease of the body's immune function, decline of lung function, respiratory and circulatory system changes, inducing and promoting human allergic diseases, respiratory diseases and other diseases.