IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jijerp/v18y2021i10p5088-d552467.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

PM 2.5 Pollution Strongly Predicted COVID-19 Incidence in Four High-Polluted Urbanized Italian Cities during the Pre-Lockdown and Lockdown Periods

Author

Listed:
  • Ourania S. Kotsiou

    (Faculty of Nursing, University of Thessaly, GAIOPOLIS, 41110 Larissa, Thessaly, Greece
    Respiratory Medicine Department, Faculty of Medicine, University of Thessaly, BIOPOLIS, 41110 Larissa, Thessaly, Greece
    Department of Physiology, Faculty of Medicine, University of Thessaly, BIOPOLIS, 41500 Larissa, Thessaly, Greece)

  • Vaios S. Kotsios

    (Metsovion Interdisciplinary Research Center, National Technical University of Athens, 44200 Attica, Athens, Greece)

  • Ioannis Lampropoulos

    (Respiratory Medicine Department, Faculty of Medicine, University of Thessaly, BIOPOLIS, 41110 Larissa, Thessaly, Greece
    Department of Business Administration, University of Patras, 26504 Patras, Peloponnesus, Greece)

  • Thomas Zidros

    (Department of Automation Engineering, Alexander Technological Educational Institute of Thessaloniki, 57400 Thessaloniki, Athens, Greece)

  • Sotirios G. Zarogiannis

    (Department of Physiology, Faculty of Medicine, University of Thessaly, BIOPOLIS, 41500 Larissa, Thessaly, Greece)

  • Konstantinos I. Gourgoulianis

    (Respiratory Medicine Department, Faculty of Medicine, University of Thessaly, BIOPOLIS, 41110 Larissa, Thessaly, Greece)

Abstract

Background: The coronavirus disease in 2019 (COVID-19) heavily hit Italy, one of Europe’s most polluted countries. The extent to which PM pollution contributed to COVID-19 diffusion is needing further clarification. We aimed to investigate the particular matter (PM) pollution and its correlation with COVID-19 incidence across four Italian cities: Milan, Rome, Naples, and Salerno, during the pre-lockdown and lockdown periods. Methods: We performed a comparative analysis followed by correlation and regression analyses of the daily average PM 10 , PM 2.5 concentrations, and COVID-19 incidence across four cities from 1 January 2020 to 8 April 2020, adjusting for several factors, taking a two-week time lag into account. Results: Milan had significantly higher average daily PM 10 and PM 2.5 levels than Rome, Naples, and Salerno. Rome, Naples, and Salerno maintained safe PM 10 levels. The daily PM 2.5 levels exceeded the legislative standards in all cities during the entire period. PM 2.5 pollution was related to COVID-19 incidence. The PM 2.5 levels and sampling rate were strong predictors of COVID-19 incidence during the pre-lockdown period. The PM 2.5 levels, population’s age, and density strongly predicted COVID-19 incidence during lockdown. Conclusions: Italy serves as a noteworthy paradigm illustrating that PM 2.5 pollution impacts COVID-19 spread. Even in lockdown, PM 2.5 levels negatively impacted COVID-19 incidence.

Suggested Citation

  • Ourania S. Kotsiou & Vaios S. Kotsios & Ioannis Lampropoulos & Thomas Zidros & Sotirios G. Zarogiannis & Konstantinos I. Gourgoulianis, 2021. "PM 2.5 Pollution Strongly Predicted COVID-19 Incidence in Four High-Polluted Urbanized Italian Cities during the Pre-Lockdown and Lockdown Periods," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 18(10), pages 1-14, May.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:18:y:2021:i:10:p:5088-:d:552467
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/18/10/5088/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/18/10/5088/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Citations

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


    Cited by:

    1. Ourania S. Kotsiou & Georgios K. D. Saharidis & Georgios Kalantzis & Evangelos C. Fradelos & Konstantinos I. Gourgoulianis, 2021. "The Impact of the Lockdown Caused by the COVID-19 Pandemic on the Fine Particulate Matter (PM 2.5 ) Air Pollution: The Greek Paradigm," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 18(13), pages 1-11, June.

    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:18:y:2021:i:10:p:5088-:d:552467. 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.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using 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.