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Review
. 2017 Dec;4(4):504-513.
doi: 10.1007/s40572-017-0168-6.

The Interplay of Climate Change and Air Pollution on Health

H Orru  1   2 , K L Ebi  3 , B Forsberg  4
Affiliations
Review

The Interplay of Climate Change and Air Pollution on Health

H Orru et al. Curr Environ Health Rep. 2017 Dec.

Abstract

Purpose of review: Air pollution significantly affects health, causing up to 7 million premature deaths annually with an even larger number of hospitalizations and days of sick leave. Climate change could alter the dispersion of primary pollutants, particularly particulate matter, and intensify the formation of secondary pollutants, such as near-surface ozone. The purpose of the review is to evaluate the recent evidence on the impacts of climate change on air pollution and air pollution-related health impacts and identify knowledge gaps for future research.

Recent findings: Several studies modelled future ozone and particulate matter concentrations and calculated the resulting health impacts under different climate scenarios. Due to climate change, ozone- and fine particle-related mortalities are expected to increase in most studies; however, results differ by region, assumed climate change scenario and other factors such as population and background emissions. This review explores the relationships between climate change, air pollution and air pollution-related health impacts. The results highly depend on the climate change scenario used and on projections of future air pollution emissions, with relatively high uncertainty. Studies primarily focused on mortality; projections on the effects on morbidity are needed.

Keywords: Climate scenarios; Dispersion; Emission; Fine particles; Ozone; Uncertainty.

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Conflict of interest statement

Conflicts of Interest

H. Orru, K.L. Ebi and B. Forsberg declare they have no conflict of interest.

Human and Animal Rights and Informed Consent

This article does not contain any studies with human or animal subjects performed by any of the authors.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
Climate and air quality interactions and direct and indirect effects on health
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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