Explore Regional PM2.5 Features and Compositions Causing Health Effects in Taiwan
Journal
Environmental Management
Date Issued
2020
Author(s)
Abstract
Chemical compositions of atmospheric fine particles like PM2.5 prove harmful to human health, particularly to cardiopulmonary functions. Multifaceted health effects of PM2.5 have raised broader, stronger concerns in recent years, calling for comprehensive environmental health-risk assessments to offer new insights into air-pollution control. However, there have been few studies adopting local air-quality-monitoring datasets or local coefficients related to PM2.5 health-risk assessment. This study aims to assess health effects caused by PM2.5 concentrations and metal toxicity using epidemiological and toxicological methods based on long-term (2007–2017) hourly monitoring datasets of PM2.5 concentrations in four cities of Taiwan. The results indicated that (1) PM2.5 concentrations and hazardous substances varied substantially from region to region, (2) PM2.5 concentrations significantly decreased after 2013, which benefited mainly from two actions against air pollution, i.e., implementing air-pollution-control strategies and raising air-quality standards for certain emission sources, and (3) under the condition of low PM2.5 concentrations, high health risks occurred in eastern Taiwan on account of toxic substances adsorbed on PM2.5 surface. It appears that under the condition of low PM2.5 concentrations, the results of epidemiological and toxicological health-risk assessments may not agree with each other. This raises a warning that air-pollution control needs to consider toxic substances adsorbed in PM2.5 and region-oriented control strategies are desirable. We hope that our findings and the proposed transferable methodology can call on domestic and foreign authorities to review current air-pollution-control policies with an outlook on the toxicity of PM2.5. © 2020, Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature.
Subjects
Epidemiology; Health risk; Heavy metal; Impact assessment; PM2.5; Toxicology
Other Subjects
Air quality; Air quality standards; Health; Health risks; Quality control; Risk assessment; Toxicity; Air quality monitoring; Atmospheric fine particles; Cardio-pulmonary function; Chemical compositions; Environmental health risk assessment; Foreign authorities; Hazardous substances; PM2.5 concentration; Air pollution control; aluminum; arsenic; barium; cadmium; chromium; cobalt; copper; heavy metal; lead; manganese; nickel; polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon; selenium; toxic substance; vanadium; zinc; air quality; concentration (composition); data set; health risk; long-term change; particulate matter; pollution control; pollution monitoring; public health; risk assessment; air pollution; air pollution control; air quality; air quality standard; Article; atmospheric diffusion; dangerous goods; economic development; health hazard; industrial production; industrialization; meteorology; motorcycle; particulate matter 2.5; Taiwan; toxicology; urbanization; adverse event; air pollutant; analysis; city; environmental monitoring; human; particulate matter; toxicity; Air Pollutants; Air Pollution; Cities; Environmental Monitoring; Humans; Particulate Matter; Taiwan
Type
journal article