Human Health Effects of Air Pollution

• Published in: Environmental health perspectives Vol. 100; pp. 45 - 56
• Main Author: Folinsbee, Lawrence J.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences. National Institutes of Health. Department of Health, Education and Welfare 01.04.1993
• Subjects: 552000 - Public Health; 560300 - Chemicals Metabolism & Toxicology; Acids - adverse effects; Aerosols; Air pollutants; Air Pollutants - adverse effects; AIR POLLUTION; BIOLOGICAL EFFECTS; CARBON COMPOUNDS; CARBON MONOXIDE; Carbon Monoxide - adverse effects; CARBON OXIDES; CHALCOGENIDES; Chemical hazards; Dioxides; DISEASES; ELEMENTS; EPIDEMIOLOGY; GENERAL AND MISCELLANEOUS//MATHEMATICS, COMPUTING, AND INFORMATION SCIENCE; Humans; LEAD; Lead Poisoning - complications; Lungs; METALS; NITROGEN COMPOUNDS; NITROGEN DIOXIDE; Nitrogen Dioxide - adverse effects; NITROGEN OXIDES; OXIDES; OXYGEN COMPOUNDS; OZONE; Ozone - adverse effects; POLLUTION; Pulmonary functions; RADIATION, THERMAL, AND OTHER ENVIRON. POLLUTANT EFFECTS ON LIVING ORGS. AND BIOL. MAT; RESPIRATORY SYSTEM DISEASES; SULFUR COMPOUNDS; SULFUR DIOXIDE; Sulfur Dioxide - adverse effects; SULFUR OXIDES; Twenty Years of Environmental Health Research
• ISSN: 0091-6765; 1552-9924
• DOI: 10.1289/ehp.9310045

Over the past three or four decades, there have been important advances in the understanding of the actions, exposure-response characteristics, and mechanisms of action of many common air pollutants. A multidisciplinary approach using epidemiology, animal toxicology, and controlled human exposure studies has contributed to the database. This review will emphasize studies of humans but will also draw on findings from the other disciplines. Air pollutants have been shown to cause responses ranging from reversible changes in respiratory symptoms and lung function, changes in airway reactivity and inflammation, structural remodeling of pulmonary airways, and impairment of pulmonary host defenses, to increased respiratory morbidity and mortality. Quantitative and qualitative understanding of the effects of a small group of air pollutants has advanced considerably, but the understanding is by no means complete, and the breadth of effects of all air pollutants is only partially understood.