As discussed in previous blogs, air pollution can lead to an increase in tuberculosis incidence, or can be a main contributor to lung cancer. Moreover, air pollution also has a large effect on respiratory diseases. Respiratory diseases are largely responsible for a significant burden from healthcare costs, premature mortality, lost productivity, significant disability and social consequences. To illustrate, according to scientists, chronic respiratory diseases are to result in 92.5 million DALYs (disability-adjusted life years) lost in 2016. DALY is used to express the number of years lost due to the disability, ill-health or early death as measure of the overall disease burden. In this blog, we will discuss a research from Raj Kumar et al. from 2015 which examines respiratory diseases as a consequence for air pollution for the most polluting city in India: Delhi.
According to earlier research, urban air pollution is an environmental concern due to suspended particulate matter (SPM) as well as nitrogen dioxide (NO2) and sulfur dioxide (SO2). The main source of SPM are power stations, vehicular transport, industries, domestic coal, burning of fossil fuels and open biomass burning. As for asthmatic children in the area of Delhi, the mean indoor SPM levels were significantly higher in their houses, than for children without asthma. Although the mean indoor NO2 levels were also higher in houses of asthmatic children, this difference was not statistically significant. With the SO2 levels, the evidence was even less binding, since the levels were only higher in houses of asthmatic children who lived in industrial areas, compared to village areas. Also, the difference was not statistically significant.
However, air pollution and it’s risk for respiratory diseases is very urgent. Over the last few decades, the prevalence of asthma has increased in countries world wide. Suspended particulate matter, can stimulate an inflammatory response in respiratory epithelium and airway macrophages. This ultimately leads to tissue damage that can result in respiratory illnesses. It is also known that SPM is responsible for causing serious respiratory diseases, such as: chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), asthma, chronic cough and phlegm, ultimately leading to premature death.
Exposure to SPM does not only have serious health effects, it also has important social consequences. Two of its striking consequences, is the welfare and income loss, which is estimated at respectively 1.6 trillion dollars and 94 billion dollars. The main reason for the losses is a decrease in productivity due to illness and poor health. This phenomenon is often referred to as ‘poverty trap’, which basically means a state in which those who are in poor health caused by environmental exposure, are not in the physical state to work, and if they can work, their wages are not enough in order to maintain their lifestyle. Moreover, these individuals often cannot afford services and goods in order to improve their health, resulting in deterioration of their economic state. Women and children are typically more susceptible for this, since they are often burdened with biomass fuel collection. It is not only a time consuming task, it can also possibly be quite dangerous, since a lot of women are the subjected to violence whilst leaving their home to make a living. Furthermore, children are forced to leave school which decreases their chance on having a bright, economically independent, future.
Sources:
South East Asia 
Dear group,
Thanks again for an interesting blog post! Your lay-out is also very nice, clear and attractive. Regarding the content of this blog, I would suggest you use more common and easier language. Sometimes the information is too complex, for example this sentence: “ Suspended particulate matter, can stimulate an inflammatory response in respiratory epithelium and airway macrophages.” What is epithelium, or what are macrophages? If you try to explain it easier, it may also help you to see what the main goal of your blog post is.
Besides this suggestion, I found the topic fort his blog post very interesting, including the focus on women and children, most vulnerable to the health related issues of air pollution.
With regards,
Lisa Kolodziej
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Dear group,
I see that you have made a lot of progress in terms of your blog. I like the layout of your blog it is very clear and attractive. Also, this blog post was very interesting. I liked the fact that you not only mentioned the health effects but as well the social effects. This once again emphasises the importance of the double burden. I was really surprised by the enormous amounts of losses.
I had one suggestion. Maybe you should look again to the title of your blog post because you only mention COPD once. I think this is not your main subject in this blog post. Or otherwise you should explain a bit more about COPD.
Thank you for your informative blogs, I have learned a lot!
Kind regards,
Julia Schellekens
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Hello all,
I love how organized and clean your blog is and also how easy it is to navigate to your different posts. In this post, you titled it “Respiratory Diseases and COPD,” but there does not seem to be lots of information on these two subjects. I would either change the post title, so it fits your subject, or add more details about the two diseases. Overall, I really like this post and feel the information is relevant to your topic. I am curious if you have any possible solutions to tackle the issues that these diseases are causing on the economy since 1.6 trillion dollars is a significant amount lost.
Keep up the great work!
Best,
Emily McDowell
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Dear Group,
As previous comments have mentioned, I also find the layout of your blog very nice and easy to navigate! I also found this post itself very interesting, and I liked that you chose one study to discuss, which made the whole thing more specific. I would however suggest to maybe use a little less scientific language, and for example leaving out the non-statistically significant components etc., since this may not be too relevant to understand the main message. I also liked in the end that you mentioned women and children to be a vulnerable population. It would be nce to have a bit more of an explanation what you mean by them being subjects to violence during biomass fuel collection. I did really like that you put emphasis on both, health as well as economic consequences! Overall I found your post interesting to read.
With kind regards,
Lydia
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Hi group, thanks for an interesting post once again. I think summarizing scientific articles into blog posts is a great way to bring science closer to the general population. However, and as mentioned before, maybe next time i would elaborate the social part and summarize the scientific findings even more. Just telling us the most important difference would be enough and would make your message clearer, since i got a bit distracted now of all the other findings. Good job on bringing science to the general public, and maybe tell us even more on gender differences another time.
Jinke Grolleman
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