Spatial patterns and temporal variations of traffic-related air pollutants and estimating its health effects in Isfahan city, Iran

Abstract

Isfahan as an important industrial city has faced with air pollution recently. Thus, we assessed the spatial and temporal trends of ambient PM2.5, CO, SO2, and O-3 and for estimating their health effect on Isfahan citizens between March 2018 and March 2019 through the AirQ+ software. Our results showed that citizens of Isfahan in almost 240, 167, and 134 of the days in the year has exposure to PM2.5, SO2, and O-3 higher than the WHO daily guideline, respectively. Daily variations of PM2.5, CO, and SO2 concentration showed the increasing trend of pollutants in the morning to evening. The maximum concentrations of O-3 were observed in the noonday. Also, the concentrations of these pollutants on Friday due to the holiday effect were higher than the weekdays. Except for O-3, the PM2.5, CO, and SO2 concentrations in the cold months and cold seasons was higher compared with the hot months and hot seasons. The total number of deaths because of lung cancer, natural mortality, ischemic heart disease, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease,, stroke associated with ambient PM2.5 with the attributable proportion (AP) 11.43, 11.63, 15.96, 15.15, and 13.1 (95 CI) were 683, 19, 2, 202, and 55 cases, respectively. Therefore, the present study provides additional data for the provincial managers and politicians useful in planning proper strategies of air pollution control to decrease exposure and attributable mortalities.