Summary
The health effects of air pollution have a lot in common with those related to active or passive smoking. However, environmental problems pose a rather different set of challenges to physicians and other healthcare professionals.
Four target levels of action may result in a reduction of the health impact of air pollution. The first two levels act on the environment rather than the individual: 1) abatement of ambient air pollution at the source to improve ambient air quality; and 2) reduction of pollution in the indoor environments where people spend most of their time. The other two downstream strategies depend entirely on the individual: 3) individual action to reduce personal exposure or dose; and 4) treatments taken to modify personal responses to air pollution, and/or to strengthen defence mechanisms.
Footnotes
Statement of Interest
None declared.
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This article originally appeared in the ERS publication Air Quality and Health and has been reproduced as part of the ERS/ELF Healthy Lungs for Lung campaign. See page 185 for more details about the campaign.
- ©ERS 2014
Breathe articles are open access and distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial Licence 4.0.
