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Scott G Winterton, Deseret News
Fog and dark inversion Salt Lake City on Monday, Dec. 11, 2017.
SALT LAKE CITY – A recent study of major air pollutants and their major cities.
Not surprisingly, the study published this month in an international environment.
The study led by George Mason University's Jenna R. Krall, however, did find secondary pollutants – those formulated by chemical reactions in the air – may play a greater role in heart disease or respiratory ailments than most research emphasizes.
In addition to Mason, researchers from Emory University, Georgia Institute of Technology and the University of Pittsburgh, reviewed pollutant levels in Atlanta, Dallas, Pittsburgh, St. Louis and Birmingham, Alabama, over a multiple-year period.
The research time frame began in 2002 and ended in 2008, and involved more than 1.8 million billing records.
Researchers looked at air pollution data for primary pollutants and chemical constituents such as sulphate, nitrate and ammonium from ambient monitoring stations within each of the five metropolitan areas.
The key question to the heart of the search for the effects of asthma, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, congestive heart failure and others.
Researchers noticed that many previous studies used only a single-pollutant framework.
"Most previous studies of air pollution and cardiorespiratory (emergency department) visits are single-city studies that only examines a few pollutants or a few specific outcomes," the research noted.
This study has a multicity model that is individually polluted individually.
They found that in Dallas to 2,557 days in Atlanta.
The study noted the complexity of the research, with its variable outcomes, statistical uncertainty in some instances and its limited, regional scope focusing on the southeast.
Bryce Bird, director of the Utah Division of Air Quality, said he was unaware of any study in Utah that looked at that array of pollutants and any correlation to emergency room visits.
Local research is primarily focused on Utah's chief, PM2.5, as the pollutant indicator, he said.
"For us that would be difficult to tease out. They (other pollutants) do increase in concentration when the lid is on, but we do not see those high concentrations unless we are seeing the PM2.5. "
A majority of northern Utah is out of reach with federal clean air standards for PM2.5, which is fine particulate matter. Those pollution particles are 2.5 micrometers or less – 3 percent of the diameter of a human hair – and small enough to invade the smallest airways.
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Over the last several years, Utah lawmakers and researchers in the field of pollution and pollution in the United States.
Bird said while it was difficult to separate what is happening in the United States compared to PM2.5 compared to other pollutants, the U.S. southeast research could be helpful in the future.
"It would help to identify strategies to improve health, and determine the exact mechanism that is causing harm," he said.
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