Reducing biomass burning is key to decrease PM exposure in European cities.

Throughout the world, ambient fine particulate matter (PM) is the environmental factor that poses the greatest risk to health and most European citizens continue to be exposed to PM levels well above World Health Organization guidelines. Here we present a comprehensive PM modelling-based source allocation assessment in 708 urban areas in Europe. The results show that urban cores, together with their commuting zones, contribute an average of 22% to urban PM concentrations levels.

Effectiveness of a Protocol to Reduce Children's Exposure to Particulate Matter and NO in Schools during Alert Days.

Reducing children's exposure to air pollutants should be considered a primary goal, especially for the most vulnerable subjects. The goal of this study was to test the effectiveness of applying a protocol in the event of alert days, i.e.

Environmental pollution and COVID-19: the molecular terms and predominant disease outcomes of their sweetheart agreement.

As the Coronavirus situation (COVID-19) continues to evolve, many questions concerning the factors relating to the diffusion and severity of the disease remain unanswered.Whilst opinions regarding the weight of evidence for these risk factors, and the studies published so far are often inconclusive or offer contrasting results, the role of comorbidities in the risk of serious adverse outcomes in patients affected with COVID-19 appears to be evident since the outset. Hypertension, diabetes, and obesity are under discussion as important factors affecting the severity of disease.

The Secretive Liaison of Particulate Matter and SARS-CoV-2. A Hypothesis and Theory Investigation.

As the novel coronavirus disease sweeps across the world, there is growing speculation on the role that atmospheric factors may have played on the different distribution of SARS-CoV-2, and on the epidemiological characteristics of COVID-19. Knowing the role that environmental factors play in influenza virus outbreaks, environmental pollution and, in particular, atmospheric airborne (particulate matter, PM) has been considered as a potential key factor in the spread and mortality of COVID-19. A possible role of the PM as the virus carrier has also been debated.

Higher health effects of ambient particles during the warm season: The role of infiltration factors.

A large number of studies have shown much higher health effects of particulate matter (PM) during the warm compared to the cold season. In this paper we present the results of an experimental study carried out in an unoccupied test apartment with the aim of understanding the reasons behind the seasonal variations of the health effects due to ambient PM exposure. Measurements included indoor and outdoor PM mass and chemical composition as well as particle size distribution of ultrafine particles.

Vertical variation of PM mass and chemical composition, particle size distribution, NO, and BTEX at a high rise building.

Substantial efforts have been made in recent years to investigate the horizontal variability of air pollutants at regional and urban scales and epidemiological studies have taken advantage of resulting improvements in exposure assessment. On the contrary, only a few studies have investigated the vertical variability and their results are not consistent. In this study, a field experiment has been conducted to evaluate the variation of concentrations of different particle metrics and gaseous pollutants on the basis of floor height at a high rise building.

Association Between Short-Term Exposure to PM2.5 and PM10 and Mortality in Susceptible Subgroups: A Multisite Case-Crossover Analysis of Individual Effect Modifiers.

We performed a multisite study to evaluate demographic and clinical conditions as potential modifiers of the particulate matter (PM)-mortality association. We selected 228,619 natural deaths of elderly persons (ages ≥65 years) that occurred in 12 Italian cities during the period 2006-2010. Individual data on causes of death, age, sex, location of death, and preexisting chronic and acute conditions from the previous 5 years' hospitalizations were collected.

[Uncertainty in estimating short-term health effects of air pollution in small- and medium-size cities].

Over the years, a growing number of small- and medium-size cities have been included in meta-analytic studies on short-term health effects of air pollution in order to increase the statistical power of these studies. This has produced an increase in the precision of meta-analytic estimates, but also a growing interest in city-specific results. As a consequence, relevant differences in the estimates have been frequently found, even for nearby cities with similar environmental and sociodemographic characteristics.

Ambient temperature and FIT performance in the Emilia-Romagna colorectal cancer screening programme.

Objective: To assess the impact of ambient temperature on faecal immunochemical test (FIT) performance in the colorectal cancer screening programme of Emilia-Romagna (Italy).

Methods: A population-based retrospective cohort study on data from 2005 to 2011. Positive rate, detection rate, and positive predictive value rate for cancers and adenomas, and incidence rate of interval cancers after negative tests were analysed using Poisson regression models.

Is particulate air pollution at the front door a good proxy of residential exposure?

The most advanced epidemiological studies on health effects of air pollution assign exposure to individuals based on residential outdoor concentrations of air pollutants measured or estimated at the front-door. In order to assess to what extent this approach could cause misclassification, indoor measurements were carried out in unoccupied rooms at the front and back of a building which fronted onto a major urban road. Simultaneous measurements were also carried out at adjacent outdoor locations to the front and rear of the building.

Desert Dust Outbreaks in Southern Europe: Contribution to Daily PM₁₀ Concentrations and Short-Term Associations with Mortality and Hospital Admissions.

Background: Evidence on the association between short-term exposure to desert dust and health outcomes is controversial.

Objectives: We aimed to estimate the short-term effects of particulate matter ≤ 10 μm (PM10) on mortality and hospital admissions in 13 Southern European cities, distinguishing between PM10 originating from the desert and from other sources.

Methods: We identified desert dust advection days in multiple Mediterranean areas for 2001-2010 by combining modeling tools, back-trajectories, and satellite data.

[Meta-analysis or pooled analysis? A comparison based on time-series used for the analysis of short-term effects of air pollution on human health].

Objectives: to compare the meta-analysis and the pooled analysis approach to study short-term effects of air pollution on human health in Emilia-Romagna Region (Central Italy) cities, characterised by strong homogeneity of environmental and sociodemographic features.

Methods: application of fixed-effects meta-analysis and fixed-effects pooled analysis on time-series data of seven cities in Emilia-Romagna in the period 2006-2010. The relationship among adverse health events (deaths due to natural causes, cardiovascular disease, cerebrovascular disease and respiratory disease) and concentrations of PM10, PM2.

[Healthy Life Years: a very promising indicator to be handled with caution].

In several public debates, scientific conferences and, recently, also in the scientific literature, some figures from EUROSTAT have been presented; they show a relevant decrease in the healthy life expectancy in Italy. This idea is based on the analysis of the trend of Healthy Life Years (HLY), an indicator synthesizing the grade of functional limitation of individuals based on the answers to a self-completed questionnaire. In particular, the dramatic decrease of HLY in Italy from 2005 to 2007 raised concerns.

Short-term effects of particulate matter constituents on daily hospitalizations and mortality in five South-European cities: results from the MED-PARTICLES project.

Background: Few recent studies examined acute effects on health of individual chemical species in the particulate matter (PM) mixture, and most of them have been conducted in North America. Studies in Southern Europe are scarce. The aim of this study is to examine the relationship between particulate matter constituents and daily hospital admissions and mortality in five cities in Southern Europe.

[Air pollution and urgent hospital admissions in 25 Italian cities: results from the EpiAir2 project].

Objective: to evaluate the relationship between air pollution and hospital admissions in 25 Italian cities that took part in the EpiAir (Epidemiological surveillance of air pollution effects among Italian cities) project.

Design: study of time series with case-crossover methodology, with adjustment for meteorological and time-dependent variables. The association air pollution hospitalisation was analyzed in each of the 25 cities involved in the study; the overall estimates of effect were obtained subsequently by means of a meta-analysis.

[Air pollution and mortality in twenty-five Italian cities: results of the EpiAir2 Project].

Objectives: this study aims at presenting the results from the Italian EpiaAir2 Project on the short-term effects of air pollution on adult population (35+ years old) in 25 Italian cities.

Design: the short-term effects of air pollution on resident people died in their city were analysed adopting the time series approach. The association between increases in 10µg/m(3) in PM10, PM2.

[Environmental indicators in EpiAir2 project: air quality data for epidemiological surveillance].

Objective: construction of environmental indicators of air pollution suitable for epidemiological surveillance in 25 Italian cities for EpiAir2 project (2006-2010) and presentation of the results from a 10 years of surveillance system (2001-2010) in 10 Italian cities.

Design: data on particulate matter (PM10 and its fine fraction PM2.5), nitrogen dioxide (NO2), and ozone (O3), measured in the 2006-2010 calendar period, were collected.

Ultrafine particle concentrations in the surroundings of an urban area: comparing downwind to upwind conditions using Generalized Additive Models (GAMs).

The aim of this study was to investigate the influence of an urban area on ultrafine particle (UFP) concentration in nearby surrounding areas. We assessed how downwind and upwind conditions affect the UFP concentration at a site placed a few kilometres from the city border. Secondarily, we investigated the relationship among other meteorological factors, temporal variables and UFP.

Are day-to-day variations of airborne particles associated with emergency ambulance dispatches?

Background: Much of the evidence on the health effects of airborne particles is based on mortality and hospital admissions, while the evidence from other morbidity indicators is still limited.

Objective: To measure the relationship between particles with diameter below 10 microm (PM10) and emergency ambulance dispatches (EAD).

Methods: Daily EAD for six towns of the Emilia-Romagna region (Italy) were obtained from a database collecting real-time data.

Associations between fine and coarse particles and mortality in Mediterranean cities: results from the MED-PARTICLES project.

Background: Few studies have investigated the independent health effects of different size fractions of particulate matter (PM) in multiple locations, especially in Europe.

Objectives: We estimated the short-term effects of PM with aerodynamic diameter ≤ 10 μm (PM10), ≤ 2.5 μm (PM2.

Emergency ambulance dispatches and apparent temperature: a time series analysis in Emilia-Romagna, Italy.

Introduction: Increases in mortality associated with oppressive weather have been widely investigated in several epidemiological studies. However, to properly understand the full public health significance of heat-related health effects, as well as to develop an effective surveillance system, it is also important to investigate the impact of stressful meteorological conditions on non-fatal events. The objective of our study was to evaluate the exposure-response relationship of ambulance dispatch data in association with biometeorological conditions using time series techniques similar to those used in previous studies on mortality.

Saharan dust and daily mortality in Emilia-Romagna (Italy).

Objective: To investigate the association between Saharan dust outbreaks and natural, cardiovascular and respiratory mortality.

Methods: A case-crossover design was adopted to assess the effects of Saharan dust days (SDD) on mortality in the Emilia-Romagna region of Italy. The population under study consisted of residents in the six main towns of the central-western part of the region who died between August 2002 and December 2006.

Comparison of different exposure settings in a case--crossover study on air pollution and daily mortality: counterintuitive results.

Because of practical problems associated with measurement of personal exposures to air pollutants in larger populations, almost all epidemiological studies assign exposures based on fixed-site ambient air monitoring stations. In the presence of multiple monitoring stations at different locations, the selection of them may affect the observed epidemiological concentration--response (C-R) relationships. In this paper, we quantify these impacts in an observational ecologic case--crossover study of air pollution and mortality.

[School environment and children respiratory health: the SEARCH project].

The Budapest Fourth Ministerial Conference on Environment and Health in 2004 launched the Children Environment and Health Action Plan for Europe (CEHAPE). The Fifth Ministerial Conference will be held in March 2010 in Parma (I) and the project activities implemented within the CEHAPE framework will be introduced. One of these projects is the European multicentric SEARCH project (School Environment And Respiratory health of Children), promoted by REC (Regional Environmental Center for Central and Eastern Europe) which involved, among national partners, several Italian regions and which will be briefly described in this paper.