According to World Health Organization (WHO), about 99% of the world’s population live in areas where the air quality standards have not met the recommended limits. In 2017 air pollution caused 4.9 million premature deaths and 147 million disability-adjusted life-years lost globally, making it one of the top 10 leading risk factors for the global burden of disease. Meanwhile, the Sixth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) asserted that the increase in global surface temperature, mainly caused by anthropogenic greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, is 1.09 °C in 2011-2020 compared to 1850- 1900, and there is a greater than 50% likelihood that global warming will reach or exceed 1.5 °C in the near-term. IPCC estimated that nowadays there are approximately 3.3-3.6 billion people living in areas that are highly vulnerable to climate change. Global climate change further complicates the health effects of air pollution, since the interactive effects between meteorological factors and air pollutants have been suggested and the impact of air pollution on human beings could be modified by meteorological factors. Thus, the changing climate may result in some alterations on the degree and mechanism of human exposure to air pollution and in the corresponding impact on population health.
Given the potential that the effects of air pollutants and meteorological factors on public health can be modified by each other, to date most studies have investigated the health effects of various air pollutants by controlling for meteorological factors as potential confounders, and vice versa. However, the interactions between meteorological factors and air pollutants as well as their combined effects on human beings have not been understood well, especially with the inclusion of global climate change. Besides, the fact that GHGs and air pollutants to a large extent stem from the same sources and are inseparable with each other, there is an opportunity to co-control GHGs and air pollutants and help tackle the challenges of both air pollution and climate change simultaneously. However, evidence on related mitigation and adaption measures is still lacking. Thus, research efforts are in earnest and urgently needed to address the abovementioned issues.
The scope of this Research Topic will cover all aspects related to the interactive effects of air pollutants and meteorological factors on public health. Contributions on the response measures to co-control GHGs and air pollutants and their ancillary benefit to population health are also welcome. The submitted papers could be original research and review articles (systematic reviews, meta-analysis, and scoping reviews) on these themes. Potential topics include, but are not limited to, the following:
• Interactive effects of air pollutants and meteorological factors on public health (morbidity and mortality).
• Quantitative overlapping or synergistic effects of specific air pollutants and meteorological factors on public health and the potential mechanisms.
• Physical modeling techniques and mathematical methods to investigate the interactions between meteorological factors and air pollutants and the combined effects on human beings.
• Mitigation and adaption measures to co-respond to or co-control GHGs and air pollutants.
• Cost-effectiveness or health co-benefits assessment of co-control measures.
According to World Health Organization (WHO), about 99% of the world’s population live in areas where the air quality standards have not met the recommended limits. In 2017 air pollution caused 4.9 million premature deaths and 147 million disability-adjusted life-years lost globally, making it one of the top 10 leading risk factors for the global burden of disease. Meanwhile, the Sixth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) asserted that the increase in global surface temperature, mainly caused by anthropogenic greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, is 1.09 °C in 2011-2020 compared to 1850- 1900, and there is a greater than 50% likelihood that global warming will reach or exceed 1.5 °C in the near-term. IPCC estimated that nowadays there are approximately 3.3-3.6 billion people living in areas that are highly vulnerable to climate change. Global climate change further complicates the health effects of air pollution, since the interactive effects between meteorological factors and air pollutants have been suggested and the impact of air pollution on human beings could be modified by meteorological factors. Thus, the changing climate may result in some alterations on the degree and mechanism of human exposure to air pollution and in the corresponding impact on population health.
Given the potential that the effects of air pollutants and meteorological factors on public health can be modified by each other, to date most studies have investigated the health effects of various air pollutants by controlling for meteorological factors as potential confounders, and vice versa. However, the interactions between meteorological factors and air pollutants as well as their combined effects on human beings have not been understood well, especially with the inclusion of global climate change. Besides, the fact that GHGs and air pollutants to a large extent stem from the same sources and are inseparable with each other, there is an opportunity to co-control GHGs and air pollutants and help tackle the challenges of both air pollution and climate change simultaneously. However, evidence on related mitigation and adaption measures is still lacking. Thus, research efforts are in earnest and urgently needed to address the abovementioned issues.
The scope of this Research Topic will cover all aspects related to the interactive effects of air pollutants and meteorological factors on public health. Contributions on the response measures to co-control GHGs and air pollutants and their ancillary benefit to population health are also welcome. The submitted papers could be original research and review articles (systematic reviews, meta-analysis, and scoping reviews) on these themes. Potential topics include, but are not limited to, the following:
• Interactive effects of air pollutants and meteorological factors on public health (morbidity and mortality).
• Quantitative overlapping or synergistic effects of specific air pollutants and meteorological factors on public health and the potential mechanisms.
• Physical modeling techniques and mathematical methods to investigate the interactions between meteorological factors and air pollutants and the combined effects on human beings.
• Mitigation and adaption measures to co-respond to or co-control GHGs and air pollutants.
• Cost-effectiveness or health co-benefits assessment of co-control measures.
![Hazard ratios (HRs) of spontaneous preterm birth (sPTB) associated with exposure to mean particulate matter equal to or <2.5 microns [PM2.5 (μg/m3)] and mean temperature Tavg (C°) the week before delivery for all live births (N = 1,318,570) in the Greater Metropolitan Region of New South Wales between 1 January 2001 and 31 December 2019 are shown with the black line. Gray areas around the black hazard ratio lines show 95% confidence intervals (CI). The vertical gray dashed lines represent the 5th and 95th percentile marks. The relationship between PM2.5 and sPTB was modeled as linear and for Tavg as a natural cubic spline with three degrees for freedom and median temperature (18.1 C°) as the reference point. All models were adjusted for year and month of conception, weekdays vs. weekends/holidays, maternal age, parity, smoking during pregnancy, area-level socio-economic status of the mother and exposure to longer term gestational Tavg and PM2.5 (i.e., exposure across the entire pregnancy except for the last week before delivery).](https://www.frontiersin.org/_rtmag/_next/image?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.frontiersin.org%2Ffiles%2FArticles%2F1220797%2Ffpubh-11-1220797-HTML%2Fimage_m%2Ffpubh-11-1220797-g001.jpg&w=3840&q=75)
