Mortality and morbidity due to ambient air pollution in Iran

Introduction: Air pollution is an emerging risk factor for human health like cancer and other health outcomes in developing countries, especially in Iran where air pollutants concentrations are high. However, the data on health effects of air pollution are limited. Objective: In this study, we have estimated the mortality for all causes (TM) and for cardiovascular diseases (CM), as well as the number of hospital admissions due to cardiovascular (HA-CVD) and respiratory diseases (HA-RD), chronic obstructive pulmonary diseases (HA-COPD), and acute myocardial infarction (AMI) due to exposure to common air pollutants. Materials and Methods: In our study, the World Health Organization (WHO) method was applied to assess the mortality and morbidity rates from published relative risk (RR) and baseline incidence (BI) values. Results: The results showed that 4.60% (95% CI: 3.50-5.31%) TM, 4.96% (95% CI: 3.16-10.50%) CM, 4.97% (95% CI: 3.04-6.81%) HA-RD, 5.55% (95% CI: 3.77-7.82%) HA-CVD, 2.50% (95% CI: 0-4.61%) HA-COPD and 4.73% (95% CI: 1.14-4.65%) AMI, respectively can be attributed to daily PM10 and SO2 concentrations exceeding 10 mu g/m(3). Conclusion: To reduce the adverse health impact of air pollution, health advices and recommendations by local health authorities should be given to general population especially for vulnerable people i.e. children, elderly or people with chronic lung and cardiac pathologies during the dusty days.