Respiratory Disease in Relation to Outdoor Air Pollution in Kanpur, India

ABSTRACT

This paper examines the effect of outdoor air pollution on respiratory disease in Kanpur, India, based on data from 2006. Exposure to air pollution is represented by annual emissions of sulfur dioxide (SO₂), particulate matter (PM), and nitrogen oxides (NO_x) from 11 source categories, established as a geographic information system (GIS)-based emission inventory in 2 km × 2 km grid. Respiratory disease is represented by number of patients who visited specialist pulmonary hospital with symptoms of respiratory disease. The results showed that (1) the main sources of air pollution are industries, domestic fuel burning, and vehicles; (2) the emissions of PM per grid are strongly correlated to the emissions of SO₂ and NO_x; and (3) there is a strong correlation between visits to a hospital due to respiratory disease and emission strength in the area of residence. These results clearly indicate that appropriate health and environmental monitoring, actions to reduce emissions to air, and further studies that would allow assessing the development in health status are necessary.

[Supplementary materials are available for this article. Go to the publisher's online edition of Archives of Environmental & Occupational Health for material on emission of SO₂, PM, NO_x from various sources, and total number of inhabitants, total number of patients in grid squares covering the Kanpur city.]

KEYWORDS:

• emission
• outdoor air pollution
• patients
• respiratory disease

Acknowledgments

This study has been carried out under the project “Environmental Health Assessment: Respiratory Disease in relation to Air Pollution in Kanpur, Uttar Pradesh,” which was an 18-month cooperation project between the Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur (IITK), Ganesh Shankar Vidyarthi Memorial (GSVM) Medical College in Kanpur, State Pollution Control Board (SPCB) in Kanpur, and Norwegian Institute for Air Research (NILU), funded under Royal Norwegian Embassy New Delhi grant (IND 3025 05/051). In addition to the partners funded by this grant, the Central Pollution Control Board, Agra, participated in the project's intercomparison exercises and preparation of standard operating procedures (SOPs).

The authors would like to thank a number of colleagues for their invaluable contribution. The staff at the laboratory at CPCB and the students and staff at the IITK have been instrumental in all logistics and technical preparation, quality control, as well as monitoring activities. The authors would like to thank the station managers who diligently supported their efforts. The authors thank especially Mike J. Kobernus and Sonja Grossberndt at NILU for help with the language.

©Hai-Ying Liu, Alena Bartonova, Martin Schindler, Mukesh Sharma, Sailesh N. Behera, Kamlesh Katiyar, and Onkar Dikshit