Evaluation of air pollution impact on cardiorespiratory health, in the City of São Paulo

• Grant number: 19/14686-8
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Scientific Initiation
• Effective date (Start): August 01, 2019
• Effective date (End): September 30, 2020
• Field of knowledge: Health Sciences - Collective Health - Public Health
• Principal Investigator: Simone Georges El Khouri Miraglia
• Grantee: Rodrigo Mascarenhas Pires de Godoy
• Host Institution: Instituto de Ciências Ambientais, Químicas e Farmacêuticas (ICAQF). Universidade Federal de São Paulo (UNIFESP). Campus Diadema. Diadema , SP, Brazil

Abstract

Air pollution has been surveyed for decades, in various cities all around the world. Associated to the population growth and allied to the misuse of fossil fuels, the aggravation of pollutants emissions led to a larger focus by the academic community to this subject. Despite the scientific efforts on proving evidences on the adverse effects of the atmospheric pollutants to human health, being associated to respiratory, cardiovascular, neurological diseases and even mortality, laws and decrees that rule the vehicle and industries pollutants emission are outdated and obsolete being dated from the 90s. Therefore, programs and institutions were created to monitor and punish irregular pollutant emission, in order to maintain air quality. In this project, the goal will be to apply the methodology of Health Impact Assessment (HIA) to the health effects of exposure to air pollutants, especially particulate matter with 10 micrometers or less in diameter (PM10). The data will be collected for the municipality of São Paulo (health, meteorological, social and pollutant concentration data, for the period between 2010 and 2017), in public databases. Based on statistical analysis, using the softwares IBM SPSS® and Excel®, we expect to obtain a relation between the variation of PM10 concentration and mortality and morbidity rates due to cardiorespiratory diseases which could support economic analyzes and the improvement of public policies in the area.