Assignment on Air Pollution Health Impact - Impact of Air Pollution on Epidemiology

Running head= AIR POLLUTION HEALTH IMPACT
Air Pollution health
impact
Impact of air pollution on
epidemiology
Student details
[Pick the date]
Air pollution is the primary cause for the death of approximately 3000 Australian
in a year and many undergo various health problems related to heart, lungs and in some
cases neural disorders. The search strategy applied for the study included the data of
2010 to 2020 in peer reviewed journals, with an emphasis on epidemiological impact on
health due to bad air quality. High particulate concentrations in air are the major cause
of most of the air pollution related disorders.
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400862, Foundations of Medicine 2 – Population Health
Environmental Epidemiology – Assignment 1
Student name: Student ID:
1. Research question
A report published by the World health organization WHO, indicated that
approximately 91 % population of the world inhabited in the areas, where, the air quality
guidelines set by WHO never met (World Health Organizaiton, 2018). It has been
estimated that air pollution is the primary cause for the death of approximately 3000
Australian in a year and many undergo various health problems related to heart, lungs and
in some cases neural disorder. The Australian national air quality standard for PM10 and
PM2.5 is 50 μg/m3 and 25 μg/m3 per 24 hours respectively, in the case of PM2.5 a yearly
exposure rate of 8 μg/m3 has been established (Environmantal Justice Australia , 2020).
However, the sudden increase in the particulate matter concentration in air could result in
an increase in percentage of respiratory health disorders such as asthma in comparison to
the normal conditions. The present report provides a brief overview of the context of the
epidemiological impact of air pollution on the health along with the outcome of the air
quality on public health.
2. Search Strategy (Inclusion and Exclusion criteria for the
current study)
To provide a sufficient informative review on the air quality and its
epidemiological impact, following points were considered:
I. The data search was conducted by reviewing papers published from 2010 to 2020,
which helps in reducing the redundancy in the data.
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400862, Foundations of Medicine 2 – Population Health
II. In terms of data authentications only peer, reviewed journals from the field were
collected and studied.
III. A special emphasis was made on the health problem related to the air quality in the
Australian continent. Therefor studies related to air quality and their health impacts
on population in other areas of the world have not been included in the present
review.
IV. The presence of particulate matter and its epidemiological impact on health was
taken as center area of the topics.
V. The study was focused on the diseases such as asthma and other health impact of
air quality such as cardio vascular diseases have not been included in the present
review.
2.1 Literature review (Study conducted by the researches, on the health
impact of air quality on Australian population)
To study the health impact of air quality articles presented in Table 1 were
extensively reviewed.
Table 1 Health effect of air pollution
Author and year Work conducted Remarks
(Haikerwal, Akram, Sim,
Meyer, Abramson, &
Dennekamp, 2016)
The wildfire in 2006-2007
was the major cause of the
high concentration of PM 2.5
and resulted in its exposure
over a large population. A
total of 2047 emergency
cases of asthma reported in
The exposure of the
population to PM2.5, which
was generated in high
concentration at the time of
wildfire of 2006-2007,
worked as trigger response
in asthma patient and
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