Assessment of the burden of disease due to PM2.5 air pollution for the Belgrade district

Abstract

The health effects attributed to exposure to ambient PM2.5 concentrations above 10 μg/m3 by using the AirQ+ modeling software were assessed. The hourly concentrations of PM2.5 were collected from 13 air pollution monitoring stations in the Belgrade district during Jun and July 2021., which were further used as input data for the AirQ+ software. The average concentration of PM2.5 for two-month monitoring from all sampling sites in the city was 14.8 μg/m3 , the maximum daily concentration was 55.7 μg/m3 , while the maximum concentration per hour was 365 μg/m3 . The spatial distribution of concentrations was mapped using geostatistical interpolation, revealing hotspots within the city centre and industrial area of the district. The burden of disease, such as stroke, ischemic heart disease (IHD), chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and lung cancer (LC), due to the ambient PM2.5 pollution was evaluated according to the WHO methodology for health risk assessment of air pollution. The model used for this assessment is based on the attributable proportion defined as the section of the health effect related to exposure to air pollution in an at-risk population. The estimated attributable proportion was 19.4% for stroke, 27.2% for IHD, 15.3% for COPD and 9.0% for LC. The estimated number of attributable cases per 100,000 population at risk, due to PM2.5 air pollution, for stroke, IHD, COPD, and LC, was 28, 34, 15, and 8, respectively.