School of Medicine: Air Pollution Health Effects Report, Autumn 2019

This report, prepared for an Environmental Health Practitioners conference, addresses the health effects of air pollution. It begins with a research question focusing on the correlation between rising air pollution and pollution-related deaths in major cities, and how to address this issue. A systematic review was conducted using ACM, IEEE, and SAGE databases, summarizing findings and identifying plausible biological mechanisms. The report highlights the importance of effective research questions, quality writing, and the use of both qualitative and quantitative research designs. It notes gaps in the evidence, such as a lack of information on the impact of air pollution on consumer health and the absence of primary data collection methods. The report concludes by proposing future research directions to address these gaps, including the adoption of primary research methods and the evaluation of strategies to mitigate the health issues caused by air pollution. The findings of the study indicate that ACM, IEEE, and SAGE databases are sufficient for obtaining research articles related to the research topic.

Health effect of air pollution

HEALTH EFFECT OF AIR POLLUTION
1
Introduction
Air pollution is one of the major factors which that lead the health related issues
worldwide and it is responsible for 6.4 million deaths per year. The air pollution
impacts on the health of individual due to which they can suffer from health related
infections like cardiovascular, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and so on. The
purpose of this study is to analyse the health effect of air pollution and research
strategies for reducing such kind of problem. The rate of death due to air pollution is
growing rapidly in major countries. This report is divided into major four sections such
as research question, systematic review, research strategies and results.
Research question
After analysing the elements of PICO a research question has been developed for this
research study which is described below:
 Does the growing air pollution rate increases pollution-related death in major
cities and how this issue can be addressed?
Systematic review
For this research study there are major three kinds of database systems used in
order to gather the journal papers and key points which are described below:
ACM database
Keywords used to
search in Emerald
Filters used to
refine the search
Results i.e. no. of
papers found
Comments or
reasons
Health effect of air
pollution
Years used from
2015-2019
20 articles found A small number of
papers found.
impact of air
pollution on health
Years used from
2015-2017
128,620 articles
found
a large number of
papers found.
IEEE database
Keywords used to Filters used to Results i.e. no. of Comments or

HEALTH EFFECT OF AIR POLLUTION
2
search in Emerald refine the search papers found reasons
Health effect of air
pollution
Years used from
2014-2019
122 articles found a number of papers
found.
impact of air
pollution on health
Years used from
2014-2017
131 articles found many papers found.
SAGE database
Keywords used to
search in Emerald
Filters used to
refine the search
Results i.e. no. of
papers found
Comments or
reasons
Health effect of air
pollution
Years used from
2014-2019
2092 articles found A huge number of
papers found.
impact of air
pollution on health
Years used from
2014-2017
2194 articles found A large number of
papers found.
Inclusive and exclusive process for research strategy
A paper having an effective research question
It is observed that an effective research question can make the research study
more effective and help the researchers for achieving objectives and aims of the
research. A well specified investigation question incorporates what the purpose of the
paper is, the key points along with the ideas for improving the effectiveness of the
paper. The research question illustrates the students about what are the key ideas
behind the research topic and what are the major objectives of the researchers.
Quality of writing
Quality of writing is another major aspect of the research paper and it can be
used for identifying the effective research papers about air pollution. The researchers
used various kinds of research designs for achieving aims of the investigation and also
exposure assessment in order to collect the relevant information. Qualitative and
quantitative both research designs are used where qualitative design focused on the
theoretical facts and quantitative design focused on the numerical data. From the recent
study it has been found that air pollution increases the rate of death in Australia and the

HEALTH EFFECT OF AIR POLLUTION
3
authors maintained the quality of writing by adopting the study population. The
research paper included a literature review section in order to collect viewpoints of
other samples and populations about air pollution.
Articles should not be old
Journal papers which are used in this papers not to be old during literature
review and the researches should obtain related research papers from various
databases, for example, ACM, IEEE, Google scholar and SAGE. The current research
papers can help the authors for adopting the modern research techniques and study
population which can support the researchers for reducing research gaps of previous
studies. Citing on the old journal paper which is out dated is unfavourable for the survey
of the literature section and the researchers should ensure that obtained papers
explained and adopted an appropriate research methodology. The journal papers which
are involved in this literature review section are completely based on the health effect
of air pollution with the study population.
From previous studies about air pollution, it has been found that many
researchers used qualitative research design for gathering theoretical information.
Some of them adopted both qualitative and quantitative design with appropriate
population and highlighted key outcomes obtained through survey and sampling
process. The main strength of research study design is that it provides both theoretical
and numerical data about the research topic by which readers can understand the
impact of air pollution on the health of individuals. But, the major limitation of
qualitative and quantitative design is that they are not able to provide fresh and new
information and facts about the research topic. Moreover, inclusive and exclusive
criteria can help the researchers for collecting effective information about research
question and critical analyse the impact of air pollution of health.
It is observed that a large level of air pollution can cause various kinds of health
infections, for example, cardiovascular disorder, COPD, lung cancer and damage cells in
the respiratory system. Abdel-Shafy, & Mansour, (2016) conducted a literature review
in order to analyse the health related issues caused by air pollution. In this journal
paper, the researchers involved the population of Australia and the United Kingdom for
identifying the impact of air pollution on the health of consumers. According to Newby,

HEALTH EFFECT OF AIR POLLUTION
4
et al., (2014) the air pollution is one of the effective key elements which increase the
rate of death in Australia. The researchers conducted a survey through questionnaire
and used a random sampling method for collecting viewpoints of other experts. Mixed
research designed is used by the researchers for evaluating both qualitative and
quantitative data about the research topic for addressing the research questions.
Summary of the results
Paper Include/Exclude Study
design
Study
population
Reason
(Kim, Kabir, &
Kabir, 2015).
X Qualitative Children
and young
individuals
Fewer talks about
health effective of
air pollution
(Abdel-Shafy, &
Mansour, 2016).
 Qualitative
and
quantitative
Australian
people
Provide enough
information about
air pollution health
issues.
Newby, et al.,
(2014)
 Qualitative
and
quantitative
School and
college
students
Identify the health
related issues
occurred by air
pollution
(Liu, Pereira, Uhl,
Bravo, & Bell,
2015).
 Qualitative
and
quantitative
Australia
and the
United state
people
Explained the
concept of
biological
mechanisms for air
pollution
(Zhang, et al.,
2017)
 Qualitative
and
quantitative
Older
women and
men
Describes the
health disorders
caused by air
pollution

HEALTH EFFECT OF AIR POLLUTION
5
(Lelieveld, Evans,
Fnais,
Giannadaki, &
Pozzer, 2015).
 Qualitative
and
quantitative
United State
population
Highlights the risk
factors associated
with air pollution
(Ghorani-Azam,
Riahi-Zanjani, &
Balali-Mood,
2016)
X Qualitative
and
quantitative
Worldwide
population
Not needed as it
contains only less
information
Van Zelm, Preiss,
van Goethem,
Van Dingenen, &
Huijbregts, 2016)
 Qualitative
and
quantitative
Australian
population
Provide an in-
depth analysis of
the research topic
(Vizcaíno,
González-
Comadran, &
Jacquemin,
2016).
X Qualitative
and
quantitative
Children
and young
population
Not needed as it
contains only some
information about
air pollution
(Nieuwenhuijsen
, et al., 2014).
 Qualitative
and
quantitative
Younger
consumers
Explains the key
factors linked with
air pollution that
increase health
disorders
(Huang, Zhang,
Qiu, & Chung,
2015).
 Qualitative
and
quantitative
Australia
and the UK
population
Provide several
strategies for
reducing the
impact of air
pollution
Plausible biological mechanism
The research question is completely based on the impact of air pollution on
health which also indicated the possible biological approach for addressing the issue of
air pollution. There are various kinds of biological mechanisms which can be used for

HEALTH EFFECT OF AIR POLLUTION
6
reducing the impact of air pollution such as reactive oxygen species production and
regulation of calcium levels. However, in order to reduce the problem of cardiovascular
disease along with lung cancer can be addressed with the help of pharmacological
interventions and antioxidant mechanisms.
Conclusion and Research gaps
The major research gap in the researched literature is that the researchers did
not involve any information about the impact of air pollution on the health of
consumers which create a gap between readers and research question. Moreover, the
literature sections provided only theoretical information about the health effect of air
pollution which increases the research gaps between researches information and
studies evidence. The evidence highlighted by the previous researcher’s shows that
primary data collection method can help consumers for obtaining fresh information
about the research question. But the authors did not involve any survey and primary
research method which is another research gap found in the searched literature.
In future research, the authors will reduce these research gaps and adopt a
primary research method for improving the effectiveness of the paper. Furthermore, the
authors will evaluate various strategies for reducing the health related issues occurred
due to air pollution. This report explained the health effect of air pollution and search
strategies along with the results. From the above discussion, it has been concluded that
the ACM, IEEE, and SAGE databases are sufficient for obtaining research articles related
to the research topic.

HEALTH EFFECT OF AIR POLLUTION
7
References
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hydrocarbons: source, environmental impact, the effect on human health and
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Huang, S. K., Zhang, Q., Qiu, Z., & Chung, K. F. (2015). Mechanistic impact of outdoor air
pollution on asthma and allergic diseases. Journal of thoracic disease, 7(1), 23.
Lelieveld, J., Evans, J. S., Fnais, M., Giannadaki, D., & Pozzer, A. (2015). The contribution
of outdoor air pollution sources to premature mortality on a global
scale. Nature, 525(7569), 367.
Liu, J. C., Pereira, G., Uhl, S. A., Bravo, M. A., & Bell, M. L. (2015). A systematic review of
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Newby, D. E., Mannucci, P. M., Tell, G. S., Baccarelli, A. A., Brook, R. D., Donaldson, K., ... &
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Van Zelm, R., Preiss, P., van Goethem, T., Van Dingenen, R., & Huijbregts, M. (2016).
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