Airborne particulate matter and premature deaths in urban Europe: the new WHO guidelines and the challenge ahead as illustrated by Spain |
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Authors: | Teresa Moreno Xavier Querol Andrés Alastuey Ferrán Ballester Wes Gibbons |
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Institution: | (1) Earth Sciences Institute “Jaume Almera”, Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (CSIC), Barcelona, Spain;(2) Escuela Valenciana de Estudios para la Salud (EVES), Conselleria de Sanidad, Generalitat Valenciana, Spain;(3) AP, 23075 Barcelona, Spain |
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Abstract: | Twenty first century epidemiological publications on urban air pollution are confirming that inhalation of fine, airborne
particulate matter (PM) has serious chronic human health effects and is a major cause of premature death worldwide. Recently
updated recommendations by WHO identify three “Interim Targets” for the stepped reduction in PM levels within world cities
in the quest to achieve an annual mean Air Quality Guideline (AQG) concentration of 20 μg/m3 for particles less than 10 microns in size (PM10). In this paper we offer a perspective from Spain, a country with the longest record of reporting pollution data from large
numbers of urban traffic sites to a central European database (AIRBASE). We can demonstrate that average annual PM concentrations
at urban traffic monitoring stations in many European cities continue to be 50–100% above the WHO AQG, a situation exacerbated
by high urban PM2.5/10 ratios which indicate a dominance of finer, more deeply inhalable particles potentially more detrimental to health. Given
that WHO has estimated in 2000 there were well over 250,000 premature deaths in Europe attributable to PM inhalation, such
continuing high urban pollution levels are placing a huge burden on European medical resources. |
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Keywords: | Particulate Matter Urban pollution WHO |
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