Disease Burdens Associated with PM2.5 Exposure

Like traffic jams and cell phones, particulate air pollution is a reality of modern living. Whether it’s from cigarette smoking, industrial emis-sions, or the burning of wood and dung for fuel, fine particulate mat-ter (PM2.5) has been strongly linked to cardiovascular disease, inflam-mation, lung cancer, and other lung diseases.1,2 As part of the Global Burden of Disease Study (GBD) 2010 collaboration,3 an international team of environmental health scientists estimated the worldwide dis-ease burden attributable to PM2.5 exposure.4 In this issue of EHP, they explain the underpinnings of how they did it.5 “This study is quite an important achievement, ” says Robert Brook, a physician at the University of Michigan who was not involved with the research. “Currently, scientists have no other way to estimate these risks.” In the past, risk models for PM2.5 and other air pollutants have been derived from work done almost exclusively in Nort