ADVANCED TOPICS IN ENVIRONMENTAL HEALTH AND AIR POLLUTION CASE STUDIES Edited by Anca Maria Moldoveanu Advanced Topics in Environmental Health and Air Pollution Case Studies Edited by Anca Maria Moldoveanu Published by InTech Janeza Trdine 9, 51000 Rijeka, Croatia Copyright © 2011 InTech All chapters are Open Access articles distributed under the Creative Commons Non Commercial Share Alike Attribution 3.0 license, which permits to copy, distribute, transmit, and adapt the work in any medium, so long as the original work is properly cited. After this work has been published by InTech, authors have the right to republish it, in whole or part, in any publication of which they are the author, and to make other personal use of the work. Any republication, referencing or personal use of the work must explicitly identify the original source. Statements and opinions expressed in the chapters are these of the individual contributors and not necessarily those of the editors or publisher. No responsibility is accepted for the accuracy of information contained in the published articles. The publisher assumes no responsibility for any damage or injury to persons or property arising out of the use of any materials, instructions, methods or ideas contained in the book. Publishing Process Manager Ivana Lorkovic Technical Editor Teodora Smiljanic Cover Designer Jan Hyrat Image Copyright Thoursie, 2011. Used under license from Shutterstock.com First published August, 2011 Printed in Croatia A free online edition of this book is available at www.intechopen.com Additional hard copies can be obtained from orders@intechweb.org Advanced Topics in Environmental Health and Air Pollution Case Studies, Edited by Anca Maria Moldoveanu p. cm. ISBN 978-953-307-525-9 free online editions of InTech Books and Journals can be found at www.intechopen.com Contents Preface IX Part 1 Environment and Health - New Approach 1 Chapter 1 What is the Minimum Risk that can be Estimated from an Epidemiology Study? 3 Mark J. Nicolich and John F. Gamble Chapter 2 Effect of Short-Term Exposure to Near Highway Pollutants in Motor Vehicle Exhaust on Inflammation Sensitive Biomarkers 27 Ori Rogowski, Eran Leshem-Rubinow, Itzhak Shapira and Arie Steinvil Chapter 3 Application of Neural Net Model to Estimate the Cardiovascular and Respiratory Diseases by Air Pollution Data in Urban Area 41 A. Pelliccioni and R. Cotroneo Chapter 4 Air Pollution and Outpatient Treatment and Hospital Admissions for Respiratory Diseases in Children in Southeast Region of Brazil 75 Hermano Albuquerque De Castro, Sandra De Souza Hacon, Karen Dos Santos Gonçalves and Washington Leite Junger Chapter 5 Tobacco Smoke Induced Cough: Mechanisms Driving Acute and Chronic Cough Pathology 97 Megan S Grace, Mark A Birrell, Eric Dubuis and Maria G Belvisi Chapter 6 Air Pollution, Reactive Oxygen Species (ROS), and Autonomic Nervous System Interactions Modulate Cardiac Oxidative Stress and Electrophysiological Changes 121 Elisa Ghelfi Chapter 7 Acute Effects of Fine Particulate Air Pollution on Cardiac Electrophysiology 157 Duanping Liao, Michele L. Shaffer and Haibo Zhou VI Contents Chapter 8 Carbon Monoxide Urban Air Pollution: Cardiac Effects 171 G. Meyer, S. Tanguy, P. Obert and C. Reboul Chapter 9 Application of the Ultramicro Forward-Mutation Assay to the Monitoring of Indoor and Outdoor Air Mutagenicity-Examples of Chengdu City and Tokyo 179 Yukihiko Takagi, Daisuke Nakajima, Sun Chengjun and Sumio Goto Chapter 10 Air Pollution and Urban Morphology: A Complex Relation or How to Optimize the Pedestrian Movement in Town 197 Gilles Maignant and Jérôme Dutozia Part 2 Environmental Case Studies 209 Chapter 11 Air Pollution in Moscow Megacity 211 Gennady Gorchakov, Eugenia Semoutnikova, Aleksey Karpov and Elena Lezina Chapter 12 Impact of Urban Air Pollution on Acute Upper Respiratory Tract Infections 237 Marcos Abdo Arbex, Silvia Leticia Santiago, Elisangela Providello Moyses, Luiz Alberto Pereira, Paulo Hilário Saldiva and Alfésio Luís Ferreira Braga Chapter 13 Air Pollutants and Its Effects on Human Healthy: The Case of the City of Trabzon 251 Yelda Aydın Türk and Mustafa Kavraz Chapter 14 Air Pollution and Its Impacts – The City of Rijeka Case Study 269 Ana Alebić-Juretić Chapter 15 Air Pollution with Asbestos in Several Cities in Romania 295 Anca Maria Moldoveanu Chapter 16 Adverse Effect of Air Pollution on Odor Perception 307 Marco Guarneros, René Drucker-Colín, José Esquivelzeta and Robyn Hudson Chapter 17 Distribution of Indoor Concentrations and Emission Sources of Formaldehyde in Japanese Residences 329 Naohide Shinohara, Atsushi Mizukoshi, Toshiyuki Kataoka, Koichi Takamine, Masashi Gamo and Yukio Yanagisawa Contents VII Chapter 18 Comparison of Indoor and Outdoor Bioaerosols in Poultry Farming 339 Elżbieta Lonc and Kinga Plewa Chapter 19 The Occurrence of Bioaerosols in The Food Preparation Areas of HIV/AIDS Hospices in Central South Africa 353 J. Nkhebenyane, J. F. R. Lues, P. Venter and K. Shale Chapter 20 Indoor Air Quality in Primary Schools 361 Maria do Carmo Freitas, Nuno Canha, Maria Martinho, Marina Almeida-Silva, Susana Marta Almeida, Priscilla Pegas, Célia Alves, Casimiro Pio, Maria Trancoso, Rita Sousa, Filomena Mouro, Teresa Contreiras Part 3 Polluted Environment and Its Influence on Elderly People Health 385 Chapter 21 Do Socio-Demographic Characteristics Modify the Association Between Air Pollution and Mortality & Morbidity? 387 Sabit Cakmak, Sara L. Martin, Claudia Blanco Vidal, Timur Gultekin, Vladislav Brion and Maria Angelica Rubio Chapter 22 Short-Term Exposure to Outdoor Pollutants and Loss of Pulmonary Function in the Elderly 409 Yun-Chul Hong and Jin Hee Kim Part 4 Polluted Environment and Its Influence On Allergic Diseases 417 Chapter 23 Aggravation of Allergic Rhinitis by Air Pollution: Demonstration by an Animal Model of Pollenosis 419 Takeshi Nabe and Nobuaki Mizutani Chapter 24 The Impact of Asthma and Allergic Diseases on Schoolchildren: Are They at Increased Risk of Absenteeism and Poor School Performance? 435 Abdulbari Bener Chapter 25 The Effects of Air Pollution on Cellular Material Release, Allergenicity and Allergens Proteins of Three Ornamental Plants 453 Farkhondeh Rezanejad and Ahmad Majd Preface One of the greatest environmental problems is air pollution. This book provides an overview on air pollution as well as its impact on human health. Beginning with the assessment of what the minimum risk that can be estimated from a study is and trying to find a link between pollution and human health, the book describes the effects of air pollutants on human physiology. Air pollutants can influence inflammation biomarkers, can influence the pathogenesis of chronic cough, can influence reactive oxygen species (ROS) and can induce autonomic nervous system interactions that modulate cardiac oxidative stress and cardiac electrophysiological changes, can have impact on morbidity and mortality related to the cardio-vascular system, can participate in the onset and exacerbation of upper respiratory diseases, can lead to the exacerbation of asthma and allergic diseases. Multiple ways of assessing the relation between environment and human health were described. For example, the Neural Network approach was used to model the relations between the environment, meteorological data and health effects and to investigate cardio-respiratory hospitalisations. Possible air pollutants were investigated in outdoor spaces as well as in indoor spaces like residential homes or primary schools. The book also presents how the urban environment can influence and modify the impact of various pollutants on human health. Specific pollution situations are described in different cities like Moscow, São Paulo, Rijeka, Bucharest, Lisbon, Mexico, Trabzon-Turkey as well as in different countries like Japan, China, Korea, Israel, South Africa, Brazil, Chile and Poland and the pollutants involved were: particulate matter, sulphur dioxide, nitrogen oxides, ozone, carbon monoxide, formaldehyde, benz(a)pyrene, asbestos, allergens, and biological contaminants. Several chapters present how indoor air quality may affect the health of children and elderly people. One study presents the relation between odor perception and air pollution and the fact that different aspects of odor perception are altered to varying degrees. The book is the result of the effort of many experts, from many countries and from different parts of the world and it shows that the interest in environmental health is growing. X Preface I wish to offer special thanks to the team from InTech Open Access Publisher for their exceptional assistance. Assoc. Prof. Anca Maria Moldoveanu MD, PhD, University of Medicine and Pharmacy “Carol Davila” Bucharest Romania [...]... reliability of a RR are outlined in Table 1 4.1 Minimal reliable RR There are several points that define a minimal reliable RR (MRRR) 8 Advanced Topics in Environmental Health and Air Pollution Case Studies Confounding Statistically significant Not statistically Significant; RR > Minimal RR from hidden uncertainties Not Statistically Significant; RR < minimal RR from hidden uncertainties Observational Study... (Clyde 18 Advanced Topics in Environmental Health and Air Pollution Case Studies 2000) BMA works on the principal that it is possible to calculate the Bayes probability that a model is the correct model for a given data set After considering all possible models one can estimate a common parameter of interest and its standard deviation and take into account multiple testing The parameter of interest in many... a cohort incidence study the RR is called a standardized incidence ratio (SIR) In a morbidity cohort or cross-sectional study the RR may be called a prevalence ratio In a case- control study the RR is called an odds ratio (OR) 6 Advanced Topics in Environmental Health and Air Pollution Case Studies In a case- control study design the study population is selected on the basis of disease, and the strength... to the start and development of non-communicable diseases (Wynder, 1987) Causal knowledge allows quick and effective 22 Advanced Topics in Environmental Health and Air Pollution Case Studies preventive measures to lessen or halt diseases without a full understanding of the underlying mechanism Some examples of interventions fruitfully undertaken without a full understanding of mechanisms include tobacco-related... 14 Advanced Topics in Environmental Health and Air Pollution Case Studies for multi-genetic diseases (RR 1.1-1.5) Modern epidemiology increasingly targets smaller effect sizes as most risk factors with large RRs have been studied As a result the proportion of true findings is expected to decrease Similarly, if the majority of RRs are very small (e.g., RR < 1.05 as in genetic, nutritional and air pollution. .. exposure, either positively or negatively; and (3) not be affected by the exposure Confounding arises due to a lack of comparability between exposed and unexposed groups If both exposed and non-exposed are all non-smokers, smoking cannot be a confounder 12 Advanced Topics in Environmental Health and Air Pollution Case Studies because smoking is not associated with exposure and exposed/unexposed groups are comparable... risk that can be determined”? Conclusion and summary, An appendix of quotes from knowledgeable researchers in the field 4 Advanced Topics in Environmental Health and Air Pollution Case Studies True Risk Epidemiological Considerations: Statistical Considerations: Bias, confounding, etc Sampling, models, etc Estimated Risk Fig 1 Considerations needed to develop the point estimate and the significance... Pollution Case Studies These combined biases are quite large and indicate a MRRR in these studies is far from 1.0 Reproductive studies of this type tend to have large error factors, and the minimal interpretable RRs for these 3 studies should be at least >3, 3.6 before assessing associations of glycol ether and congenital malformations in these studies Maldonado, et al (2003) indicate that... fit to the “new data.” 20 Advanced Topics in Environmental Health and Air Pollution Case Studies This type of validation would be a major demonstration that the estimated risk was useful both as a descriptor and a predictor However, in many situations this method is not feasible In a cohort study all the ‘cases’ have usually been identified and there are no more cases to use in the second, confirmatory,... setting an environmental standard based on incomplete information ‘The Regulator’s Dilemma’ and suggests initiating a branch of science called Regulatory Science In this new branch of science the norms of scientific proof would be less demanding than in standard science Instead of asking science for answers to questions that are unanswerable, the regulators should be content with less far-reaching and . ADVANCED TOPICS IN ENVIRONMENTAL HEALTH AND AIR POLLUTION CASE STUDIES Edited by Anca Maria Moldoveanu Advanced Topics in Environmental Health and Air Pollution. are outlined in Table 1. 4.1 Minimal reliable RR There are several points that define a minimal reliable RR (MRRR). Advanced Topics in Environmental Health and Air Pollution Case Studies. ratio (OR). Advanced Topics in Environmental Health and Air Pollution Case Studies 6 In a case- control study design the study population is selected on the basis of disease, and the strength