Health Effects Associated With Exposure to Ambient Air Pollution

Abstract

The World Health Organization has identified ambient air pollution as a high public health priority, based on estimates of air pollution related death and disability-adjusted life years derived in its Global Burden of Disease initiative. The NERAM Colloquium Series on Health and Air Quality was initiated to strengthen the linkage between scientists, policymakers, and other stakeholders by reviewing the current state of science, identifying policy-relevant gaps and uncertainties in the scientific evidence, and proposing a path forward for research and policy to improve air quality and public health. The objective of this paper is to review the current state of science addressing the impacts of air pollution on human health. The paper is one of four background papers prepared for the 2003 NERAM/AirNet Conference on Strategies for Clean Air and Health, the third meeting in the international Colloquium Series. The review is based on the framework and findings of the U.S. National Research Committee (NRC) on Research Priorities for Airborne Particulate Matter and addresses key questions underlying air quality risk management policy decisions.

This paper was prepared as a background paper for discussion at the third meeting in the NERAM Air Quality and Health Colloquium Series. The colloquium is sponsored by Canadian Petroleum Products Institute, Health Canada, Ontario Ministry of Environment, U.S. EPA, and Shell International Petroleum Company Limited. Jonathan Samet is co-director of the Risk Sciences and Public Policy Institute, and professor and chair of the Department of Epidemiology at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. Daniel Krewski is NSERC/SSHRC/McLaughlin Chair in Population Health Risk Assessment at the University of Ottawa. The authors are grateful to Daniel Rainham of the McLaughlin Centre for Population Health and Lorraine Craig of NERAM for their assistance in preparing this paper.

Notes

∗The material in this subsection is drawn from HEI (2003b), Chapter 3, “From Regulatory Action to Exposure and Dose.”

∗See Reid et al., this issue, for further discussion of air quality models as a policy tool.

∗The material in this subsection is drawn from the HEI Monograph (HEI, 2003b).

∗See background paper by Rabl et al. in this issue for further discussion of cost-benefit analysis of air quality policies.

Canada Wide Standards Development Committee for Particulate Matter and Ozone. 1999. Compendium of Benefits Information. 99-08-17.