The Role of Air Pollution during the COVID-19 Pandemic
A special issue of International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health (ISSN 1660-4601). This special issue belongs to the section "Environmental Health".
Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (30 June 2022) | Viewed by 22913
Special Issue Editors
Interests: food hygiene; food safety; risk assessment; environmental health; environmental epidemiology
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
2. Policlinico “G. Rodolico-San Marco”, 95123 Catania, Italy
Interests: public health; environmental epidemiology and hygiene; food quality and safety; one health; environmental health; waste management and health; hospital hygiene; prevention
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Interests: environmental chemistry; environment and health; environmental epidemiology; environmental remediation
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
Air pollution was a recognized and serious health problem long before the beginning of industrialization, and it is the largest environmental cause of disease and early death in the world today. Even before the coronavirus pandemic, the World Health Organization estimated that air pollution is responsible for 7 million premature deaths a year worldwide, and it has been linked to higher rates of lung cancer, heart disease, stroke, and respiratory diseases such as asthma. Soot, smoke, mold, pollen, methane, and carbon dioxide are a just few examples of common pollutants. The main consequences of air pollution are global warming, acid rain, smog, ozone depletion, etc. Traditional control strategies typically reduce emissions for specific air pollutants and sectors to maintain pollutant concentrations below standards.
The COVID-19 pandemic constitutes an unexpected challenge that is very different from the known viral infections, and is a big opportunity for the scientific community to study if environmental risk factors could be potential vehicles of transmission for airway viral infections and an exacerbating factor in the susceptibility to and/or severity of infection outbreaks.
For this Special Issue, we invite collaborative, interdisciplinary, and innovative work that seeks to deepen our understanding of the associations between, the potential effects, and the mechanisms involved in air pollution-induced exacerbation of respiratory infections, and to explore whether airborne pollution particles could be a vector that spreads COVID-19 and makes it more virulent. Furthermore, the scientific community has a unique opportunity to study the beneficial effects of the drastic reduction of air pollution derived from the global economic lockdown on the environment and human health.
We hope you will consider contributing to this Special Issue.
Dr. Chiara Copat
Prof. Dr. Margherita Ferrante
Dr. Antonio Cristaldi
Guest Editors
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Keywords
- air pollution
- COVID-19 pandemic
- vehicle of transmission
- exacerbating factors
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