IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jijerp/v13y2016i12p1246-d85310.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Fine Particulate Matter in Urban Environments: A Trigger of Respiratory Symptoms in Sensitive Children

Author

Listed:
  • Daniel Dunea

    (Faculty of Environmental Engineering and Food Science, Valahia University of Targoviste, Aleea Sinaia No.13, RO-130004 Targoviste, jud. Dambovita, Romania)

  • Stefania Iordache

    (Faculty of Environmental Engineering and Food Science, Valahia University of Targoviste, Aleea Sinaia No.13, RO-130004 Targoviste, jud. Dambovita, Romania)

  • Alin Pohoata

    (Faculty of Sciences and Arts, Valahia University of Targoviste, Bd. Unirii No.18-24, RO-130082 Targoviste, jud. Dambovita, Romania)

Abstract

The overall objective of this research was to study children’s respiratory illness levels in Targoviste (Romania) in relationship to the outdoor concentrations of airborne particulate matter with an aerodynamic diameter below 2.5 µm (PM 2.5 ). We monitored and analysed the PM 2.5 concentrations according to a complex experimental protocol. The health trial was conducted over three months (October–December 2015) and required the active cooperation of the children’s parents to monitor carefully the respiratory symptoms of the child, i.e., coughing, rhinorrhoea, wheezing, and fever, as well as their outdoor program. We selected the most sensitive children ( n = 25; age: 2–10 years) with perturbed respiratory health, i.e., wheezing, asthma, and associated symptoms. The estimated average PM 2.5 doses were 0.8–14.5 µg·day −1 for weekdays, and 0.4–6.6 µg·day −1 for the weekend. The frequency and duration of the symptoms decreased with increasing age. The 4- to 5-year old children recorded the longest duration of symptoms, except for rhinorrhoea, which suggested that this age interval is the most vulnerable to exogenous trigger agents ( p < 0.01) compared to the other age groups. PM 2.5 air pollution was found to have a direct positive correlation with the number of wheezing episodes ( r = 0.87; p < 0.01) in November 2015. Monitoring of wheezing occurrences in the absence of fever can provide a reliable assessment of the air pollution effect on the exacerbation of asthma and respiratory disorders in sensitive children.

Suggested Citation

  • Daniel Dunea & Stefania Iordache & Alin Pohoata, 2016. "Fine Particulate Matter in Urban Environments: A Trigger of Respiratory Symptoms in Sensitive Children," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 13(12), pages 1-18, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:13:y:2016:i:12:p:1246-:d:85310
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/13/12/1246/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/13/12/1246/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. P.S. Kanaroglou & N.A. Soulakellis & N.I. Sifakis, 2002. "Improvement of satellite derived pollution maps with the use of a geostatistical interpolation method," Journal of Geographical Systems, Springer, vol. 4(2), pages 193-208, June.
    2. Lixin Li & Xiaolu Zhou & Marc Kalo & Reinhard Piltner, 2016. "Spatiotemporal Interpolation Methods for the Application of Estimating Population Exposure to Fine Particulate Matter in the Contiguous U.S. and a Real-Time Web Application," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 13(8), pages 1-20, July.
    3. Gaurav Sinha & David M. Mark, 2005. "Measuring similarity between geospatial lifelines in studies of environmental health," Journal of Geographical Systems, Springer, vol. 7(1), pages 115-136, October.
    4. Masanari Watanabe & Hisashi Noma & Jun Kurai & Hiroyuki Sano & Degejirihu Hantan & Masaru Ueki & Hiroya Kitano & Eiji Shimizu, 2016. "Effects of Short-Term Exposure to Particulate Air Pollutants on the Inflammatory Response and Respiratory Symptoms: A Panel Study in Schoolchildren from Rural Areas of Japan," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 13(10), pages 1-13, September.
    5. Natasha A. Greene & Vernon R. Morris, 2006. "Assessment of Public Health Risks Associated with Atmospheric Exposure to PM 2.5 in Washington, DC, USA," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 3(1), pages 1-12, March.
    6. José-María Montero & Coro Chasco & Beatriz Larraz, 2010. "Building an environmental quality index for a big city: a spatial interpolation approach combined with a distance indicator," Journal of Geographical Systems, Springer, vol. 12(4), pages 435-459, December.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Ji Zhou & Ruoyi Lei & Jianming Xu & Li Peng & Xiaofang Ye & Dandan Yang & Sixu Yang & Yong Yin & Renhe Zhang, 2022. "The Effects of Short-Term PM 2.5 Exposure on Pulmonary Function among Children with Asthma—A Panel Study in Shanghai, China," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(18), pages 1-14, September.
    2. Nihit Goyal & David Canning, 2017. "Exposure to Ambient Fine Particulate Air Pollution in Utero as a Risk Factor for Child Stunting in Bangladesh," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 15(1), pages 1-12, December.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. José Antonio Rodríguez Martín & Juan Dios Jiménez Aguilera & José Antonio Salinas Fernández & José María Martín Martín, 2016. "Millennium Development Goals 4 and 5: Progress in the Least Developed Countries of Asia," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 129(2), pages 489-504, November.
    2. Chen, Jie & Shaw, Shih-Lung & Yu, Hongbo & Lu, Feng & Chai, Yanwei & Jia, Qinglei, 2011. "Exploratory data analysis of activity diary data: a space–time GIS approach," Journal of Transport Geography, Elsevier, vol. 19(3), pages 394-404.
    3. Ángeles Sánchez-Domínguez & Maria J. Ruiz Martos, 2013. "Europe 2020 strategy: a strategy for which type of growth?," ThE Papers 13/11, Department of Economic Theory and Economic History of the University of Granada..
    4. Noelia Somarriba Arechavala & Pilar Zarzosa Espina & Bernardo Pena Trapero, 2015. "The Economic Crisis and its Effects on the Quality of Life in the European Union," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 120(2), pages 323-343, January.
    5. Enrico Ivaldi & Guido Bonatti & Riccardo Soliani, 2017. "An Indicator for the Measurement of Political Participation: The Case of Italy," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 132(2), pages 605-620, June.
    6. Soo Ran Won & In-Keun Shim & Jeonghoon Kim & Hyun Ah Ji & Yumi Lee & Jongchun Lee & Young Sung Ghim, 2021. "PM 2.5 and Trace Elements in Underground Shopping Districts in the Seoul Metropolitan Area, Korea," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 18(1), pages 1-16, January.
    7. Mishra, SK, 2012. "A note on the indeterminacy and arbitrariness of pena’s method of construction of synthetic indicators," MPRA Paper 37534, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    8. Antonio Páez & Fei Long & Steven Farber, 2008. "Moving Window Approaches for Hedonic Price Estimation: An Empirical Comparison of Modelling Techniques," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 45(8), pages 1565-1581, July.
    9. José María Martín Martín & Jose Antonio Salinas Fernández & José Antonio Rodríguez Martín & Juan De Dios Jiménez Aguilera, 2017. "Assessment of the Tourism’s Potential as a Sustainable Development Instrument in Terms of Annual Stability: Application to Spanish Rural Destinations in Process of Consolidation," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 9(10), pages 1-20, September.
    10. Mishra, SK, 2012. "A maximum entropy perspective of Pena’s synthetic indicators," MPRA Paper 37797, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    11. Sawaeng Kawichai & Susira Bootdee & Sopittaporn Sillapapiromsuk & Radshadaporn Janta, 2022. "Epidemiological Study on Health Risk Assessment of Exposure to PM2.5-Bound Toxic Metals in the Industrial Metropolitan of Rayong, Thailand," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(22), pages 1-17, November.
    12. Stefano Landi & Enrico Ivaldi & Angela Testi, 2018. "Measuring Change Over Time in Socio-economic Deprivation and Health in an Urban Context: The Case Study of Genoa," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 139(2), pages 745-785, September.
    13. Mishra, SK, 2012. "A note on construction of heuristically optimal Pena’s synthetic indicators by the particle swarm method of global optimization," MPRA Paper 37625, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    14. Mishra, SK, 2012. "Construction of Pena’s DP2-based ordinal synthetic indicator when partial indicators are rank scores," MPRA Paper 39088, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    15. José-María Montero & Coro Chasco & Beatriz Larraz, 2010. "Building an environmental quality index for a big city: a spatial interpolation approach combined with a distance indicator," Journal of Geographical Systems, Springer, vol. 12(4), pages 435-459, December.
    16. Stossel, Zeev & Kissinger, Meidad & Meir, Avinoam, 2015. "Measuring the biophysical dimension of urban sustainability," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 120(C), pages 153-163.
    17. Benjamin Adams, 2015. "Finding similar places using the observation-to-generalization place model," Journal of Geographical Systems, Springer, vol. 17(2), pages 137-156, April.
    18. Sudhanshu K. MISHRA, 2016. "BA Note on Construction of a Composite Index by Optimization of Shapley Value Shares of the Constituent Variables," Turkish Economic Review, KSP Journals, vol. 3(3), pages 466-472, September.
    19. José Antonio Rodríguez Martín & José María Martín Martín & Juan Dios Jiménez Aguilera, 2018. "A Synthetic Indicator of Progress Towards the Millennium Development Goals 2, 3 and 4 in the Least Developed Countries (LDCs) of Asia," Applied Research in Quality of Life, Springer;International Society for Quality-of-Life Studies, vol. 13(1), pages 1-19, March.
    20. Enrico Ivaldi & Guido Bonatti & Riccardo Soliani, 2018. "Objective and Subjective Health: An Analysis of Inequality for the European Union," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 138(3), pages 1279-1295, August.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:13:y:2016:i:12:p:1246-:d:85310. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.