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Differential impact of government lockdown policies on reducing air pollution levels and related mortality in Europe.

ABSTRACT: Previous studies have reported a decrease in air pollution levels following the enforcement of lockdown measures during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic. However, these investigations were mostly based on simple pre-post comparisons using past years as a reference and did not assess the role of different policy interventions. This study contributes to knowledge by quantifying the association between specific lockdown measures and the decrease in NO₂, O₃, PM_2.5, and PM₁₀ levels across 47 European cities. It also estimated the number of avoided deaths during the period. This paper used new modelled data from the Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service (CAMS) to define business-as-usual and lockdown scenarios of daily air pollution trends. This study applies a spatio-temporal Bayesian non-linear mixed effect model to quantify the changes in pollutant concentrations associated with the stringency indices of individual policy measures. The results indicated non-linear associations with a stronger decrease in NO₂ compared to PM_2.5 and PM₁₀ concentrations at very strict policy levels. Differences across interventions were also identified, specifically the strong effects of actions linked to school/workplace closure, limitations on gatherings, and stay-at-home requirements. Finally, the observed decrease in pollution potentially resulted in hundreds of avoided deaths across Europe.

SUBMITTER: Schneider R

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8791935 | biostudies-literature | 2022 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Differential impact of government lockdown policies on reducing air pollution levels and related mortality in Europe.

Schneider Rochelle R Masselot Pierre P Vicedo-Cabrera Ana M AM Sera Francesco F Blangiardo Marta M Forlani Chiara C Douros John J Jorba Oriol O Adani Mario M Kouznetsov Rostislav R Couvidat Florian F Arteta Joaquim J Raux Blandine B Guevara Marc M Colette Augustin A Barré Jérôme J Peuch Vincent-Henri VH Gasparrini Antonio A

Scientific reports 20220126 1

Previous studies have reported a decrease in air pollution levels following the enforcement of lockdown measures during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic. However, these investigations were mostly based on simple pre-post comparisons using past years as a reference and did not assess the role of different policy interventions. This study contributes to knowledge by quantifying the association between specific lockdown measures and the decrease in NO2, O3, PM2.5</ ...[more]

PMID: 35082316

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Project description:The lockdown and related measures implemented by many European countries to stop the spread of the SARS-CoV-2 virus (COVID-19) pandemic have altered the economic activities and road transport in many cities. To rigorously evaluate how these measures have affected air quality in Europe, we developed Bayesian spatio-temporal (BST) models that assess changes in the surface nitrogen dioxide (NO2) and fine particulate matter (PM2.5) concentration across the continent. We fitted BST models to measurements of the two pollutants in 2020 using a lockdown indicator covariate, while accounting for the spatial and temporal correlation present in the data. Since other factors, such as weather conditions, local combustion sources and/or land surface characteristics may contribute to the variation of pollutant concentrations, we proposed two model formulations that allowed the differentiation between the variations in pollutant concentrations due to seasonality from the variations associated to the lockdown policies. The first model compares the changes in 2020, with the ones during the same period in the previous five years, by introducing an offset term, which controls for the long-term average concentrations of each pollutant during 2014–2019. The second approach models only the 2020 data, but adjusts for confounding factors. The results indicated that the latter can better capture the lockdown effect. The measures taken to tackle the virus in Europe reduced the average surface concentrations of NO2 and PM2.5 by 29.5% (95% Bayesian credible interval: 28.1%, 30.9%) and 25.9% (23.6%, 28.1%), respectively. To our knowledge, this research is the first to account for the spatio-temporal correlation present in the monitoring data during the pandemic and to assess how it affects estimation of the lockdown effect while accounting for confounding. The proposed methodology improves our understanding of the effect of COVID-19 lockdown policies on the air pollution burden across the continent. Graphical abstract Unlabelled Image

Project description:Zinc (Zn) is a major elemental component of respirable ambient particulate matter (PM) detected often at alarming levels in urban air. Exposure to PM has been widely associated with increased cardiovascular morbidity and mortality, however, it is not known what components or sources of PM are causative. We recently demonstrated that long-term episodic inhalation of combustion PM, having similar amount of Zn found in urban PM, caused myocardial lesions in rats. We further demonstrated that a single pulmonary exposure to Zn at high concentration is associated with disturbances in cardiac mitochondrial function, ion channel regulation, calcium homeostasis, and cell signaling. Therefore, in this study we investigated the role of PM-associated Zn in cardiac injury using multiple exposure scenarios. Male Wistar-Kyoto (WKY) rats of 12-14 wks age were intratracheally exposed (once per wk x 8 or16 wks) to either (1) saline (control); (2) PM having no soluble Zn; (3) combustion PM suspension containing 14.5 ug/mg water-soluble Zn at high and (4) low dose levels, (5) the aqueous fraction of this suspension devoid of solid insoluble particulate fraction (14.5 ug/mg soluble Zn), or (6) Zn sulfate. Zn concentrations were identical in groups 3, 5 and 6. Pulmonary toxicity was apparent in all exposure groups when compared to saline as determined by recovery of cells in bronchoalveolar lavage fluid. Long-term exposure to PM with or without soluble Zn, or Zn sulfate caused distinct myocardial lesions characterized by subepicardial and randomly distributed myocardial inflammation, degeneration, and fibrosis. The lesion severity was higher in those groups receiving Zn PM. Because cardiac mitochondria are likely the primary target of inhaled metal or other absorbed PM components, we analyzed mitochondrial DNA damage using QPCR and found that all exposure groups except those exposed to PM without Zn caused variable degree of damage. Aconitase activity, sensitive to inhibition by oxidative stress was inhibited slightly but significantly in rats receiving zinc sulfate. Although modest, microarray (Affymetrix) analysis revealed expression changes in the heart reflective of effects on cell signaling, inflammation/oxidative stress, mitochondrial fatty acid metabolisms and cell cycle regulation in rats exposed to zinc sulfate. However, these changes were minimal following exposure to PM devoid of soluble metals. We demonstrate that episodic subchronic pulmonary exposure to zinc sulfate causes cardiac injury and mitochondrial DNA damage. Thus, water-soluble PM-associated zinc may be one of the PM components responsible for cardiovascular morbidity. Experiment Overall Design: Group 1 received Saline to serve as a control. Group 2 received Mount St. Helenâs ash, which does not contain any water-soluble zinc or other metals such that we can delineate any cardiac effect secondary to pulmonary deposition of these particles as these fine mode particles themselves are not likely to translocate to the heart. Group 3 received whole saline suspension of the same fugitive oil combustion particle sample used in the previous study, which contained insoluble components plus water-soluble zinc (Kodavanti et al., 2003; 14.5 ug/mg zinc) and also a small amount of water-soluble nickel (3.0 Âµg/mg). Elemental composition of this PM is comparable to Ottawa urban PM (Kodavanti et al., 2003). Group 4 also received same particle sample but at half the dose than group 3. Group 5 received saline-soluble or leachable fraction of PM-HD devoid of any solid material but contained soluble components including zinc and nickel. And, group 6 received zinc sulfate at concentration that was present in groups 3 or 5. This design allowed us to test if cardiac injury in rats was due to leached of zinc or solid particles. There were 4 replicates per treatment group.

Dataset Information

Differential impact of government lockdown policies on reducing air pollution levels and related mortality in Europe.

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Differential impact of government lockdown policies on reducing air pollution levels and related mortality in Europe.

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