Characteristics of airborne bacterial communities in indoor and outdoor environments during continuous haze events in Beijing: Implications for health care

• Published in: Environment international Vol. 139; p. 105721
• Main Authors: Guo, Jianguo, Xiong, Yi, Shi, Changhua, Liu, Ce, Li, Hongwei, Qian, Hua, Sun, Zongke, Qin, Chuan
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Netherlands Elsevier Ltd 01.06.2020; Elsevier
• Subjects: Airborne bacterial community; Haze events; Indoor environment; Outdoor environment; Pneumonia; Respiratory disease; Pneumonia; Indoor environment; Airborne bacterial community; Haze events; Respiratory disease; Outdoor environment
• ISSN: 0160-4120; 1873-6750
• DOI: 10.1016/j.envint.2020.105721

[Display omitted] •Two typical bacterial community types were found in heavy haze season.•The indoor bacterial community structure mainly tracked that found outdoors.•Outdoor airborne bacterial communities fiercely affected the enriched genera in indoor environment.•Special airborne bacterial community type could increase the incidence of pneumonia. There is solid evidence that haze pollution threatens human health owing to the abiotic pollutants it contains. However, the characteristics of airborne bacterial communities in indoor and outdoor environments exhibiting haze occurrence are still unknown. Thus, we examined variations in both indoor and outdoor airborne bacterial communities in Beijing from December 9–27, 2016, a period which included three haze events. The outdoor airborne bacterial communities were clustered into two main groups (Groups I and II), and they shifted between two typical bacterial communities regardless of the haze event. The Chao1, Shannon, and phylogenetic diversity indexes and abundance of dominant classes changed significantly, as did airborne bacterial community type. The indoor airborne bacterial community closely tracked the outdoor bacterial community type, forming two obvious groups supported by Adonis analysis, changes in dominant classes, and bacterial diversity compared to the outdoor group. Furthermore, we found that the airborne bacterial community type could affect the morbidity of respiratory diseases. Daily pneumonia cases were significantly higher in Group I (p = 0.035), whereas daily amygdalitis cases were significantly higher in Group II (p = 0.025). Interestingly, the enriched classes in the indoor environment were quite different from those in the typical airborne bacterial community environment, except for Clostridia, which had significantly higher abundance in both indoor environments. In conclusion, we found that the two indoor and outdoor airborne bacterial community types changed independently of haze events, and the special airborne bacterial community type was closely related to the incidence of pneumonia in the heavy haze season.