What is Air Pollution?
The number of premature deaths from exposure to PM and ozone from OECD.
You smoke, even if you aren’t actively lighting cigarettes and placing them in your mouth. The air pollution that you inhale every day can equate to cigarettes, in some cases even multiple cigarettes. Shootismoke.app is a website/app that converts air pollution data from UC Berkeley into cigarettes. According to them, in New Delhi, India, one would be smoking 58.4 cigarettes each month. In Beijing, it would be 17.9 cigarettes monthly. Lastly, in Washington D.C it’s 16.5 cigarettes each month. Subconsciously smoking all of these cigarettes undoubtedly has an impact on our lung health as well as brain health, but before we get to that, we must learn about air pollution itself. Air Pollution can be defined as the air that is contaminated with harmful substances and toxins. There are a few different types of air pollution that we will be discussing: particulate matter, sulfur dioxide, nitrogen dioxide, and ground-level ozone.
To begin, we have particulate matter. Particulate matter is usually caused by traffic and fuel combustion. There are a few different sizes of particulate matter, PM10, particulate matter with the size of 10 micrometers or less, and PM2.5, particulate matter with the size of 2.5 micrometers or less. PM10 can go deep into the lungs and worsen existing respiratory diseases while PM2.5, can be even more dangerous. According to the WHO, These particles are so small that 60 of them make up the width of a human hair.” PM2.5 particles can go deep into the lungs and in some cases it can end up in the bloodstream, increasing the risk of getting respiratory and heart disease as well as lung cancer.
Next up is sulfur dioxide. Sulfur dioxide comes from the burning of fossil fuels. This type of pollution can also dangerously affect the lungs, causing shortness of breath, wheezing, tightness in the chest, as well as other problems, especially during physical activity. Children with asthma are particularly sensitive to the effects of sulfur dioxide.
The third is nitrogen dioxide. Nitrogen dioxide comes from gas cookers and road traffic. Lung.org states that “Cars, trucks, and buses are the largest sources of emissions, followed by power plants, diesel-powered heavy construction equipment and other movable engines, and industrial boilers.” Nitrogen dioxide can increase inflammation in the airways, worsen cough and wheezing, increase asthma attacks, reduce lung function, and more. New research shows that nitrogen dioxide may be the cause of asthma in children. Other researchers have found that exposure to nitrogen dioxide can negatively affect the survival of lung cancer patients
Finally, we have ground-level ozone. Ground-level ozone occurs when sunlight or heat reacts with vehicle pollution. You may have heard of the ozone layer, which protects us from UV light, but ground-level ozone is far from helpful. Ground-level ozone can cause coughing, sore or scratchy throat, damaged airways, and can increase the frequency of asthma attacks.
According to the World Health Organization, “Microscopic pollutants in the air can slip past our body's defenses, penetrating deep into our respiratory and circulatory system, damaging our lungs, heart, and brain.” Air pollution can harm us without our knowledge, so it is important to be aware of our air. Stay tuned for other articles from the Aware of Air team!