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Respiratory effects of air pollutants among nonsmoking traffic policemen of Patiala, India

BACKGROUND: Air pollution due to road traffic is a serious health hazard and thus the persons who are continuously exposed, may be at an increased risk. Although several studies have confirmed the ill effects of air pollutants on the lung function of traffic policemen, only a few have investigated t...

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Autores principales: Gupta, Sharat, Mittal, Shallu, Kumar, Avnish, Singh, Kamal D.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Medknow Publications 2011
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3213710/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22084537
http://dx.doi.org/10.4103/0970-2113.85685
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author Gupta, Sharat
Mittal, Shallu
Kumar, Avnish
Singh, Kamal D.
author_facet Gupta, Sharat
Mittal, Shallu
Kumar, Avnish
Singh, Kamal D.
author_sort Gupta, Sharat
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: Air pollution due to road traffic is a serious health hazard and thus the persons who are continuously exposed, may be at an increased risk. Although several studies have confirmed the ill effects of air pollutants on the lung function of traffic policemen, only a few have investigated the relationship between respiratory health and duration of exposure in this category of occupationally exposed persons. AIM: The study was carried out with the aim of evaluating the extent of impairment in lung function in traffic policemen in respect to an unexposed control group having the same age group. MATERIALS AND METHODS: A cross-sectional study was conducted in which the spirometric parameters of a group of 100 nonsmoking traffic policemen, aged 20-55 years, working in and around Patiala city, were compared with those obtained in an age-matched control group, consisting of 100 healthy males, serving in the Punjab Police, who have never done traffic duty and are thus not exposed to traffic pollution. Lung function was done with MEDSPIROR. The data on the overall health status of the subjects was collected using the standard Respirator Medical Evaluation Questionnaire. The statistical analysis was carried out with SPSS PC software version 13. RESULTS: Traffic policemen recorded a significant decline in various parameters, such as forced vital capacity (FVC), forced expiratory volume in one second (FEV(1)), and peak expiratory flow rate (PEFR) when compared with controls, and is probably due to exposure to vehicular pollution. It was also observed that in traffic policemen with >8 years of exposure, the values of FVC (2.7 L), FEV(1) (1.8 L), and PEFR (7.5 L/s) were significantly lower than those obtained in traffic policemen with <8 years of exposure, in whom the values were 2.9 L, 2.3 L, and 7.7 L/s for FVC, FEV(1), and PEFR, respectively. CONCLUSION: The effect of pollution by vehicular exhausts may be responsible for these pulmonary function impairments.
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spelling pubmed-32137102011-11-14 Respiratory effects of air pollutants among nonsmoking traffic policemen of Patiala, India Gupta, Sharat Mittal, Shallu Kumar, Avnish Singh, Kamal D. Lung India Original Article BACKGROUND: Air pollution due to road traffic is a serious health hazard and thus the persons who are continuously exposed, may be at an increased risk. Although several studies have confirmed the ill effects of air pollutants on the lung function of traffic policemen, only a few have investigated the relationship between respiratory health and duration of exposure in this category of occupationally exposed persons. AIM: The study was carried out with the aim of evaluating the extent of impairment in lung function in traffic policemen in respect to an unexposed control group having the same age group. MATERIALS AND METHODS: A cross-sectional study was conducted in which the spirometric parameters of a group of 100 nonsmoking traffic policemen, aged 20-55 years, working in and around Patiala city, were compared with those obtained in an age-matched control group, consisting of 100 healthy males, serving in the Punjab Police, who have never done traffic duty and are thus not exposed to traffic pollution. Lung function was done with MEDSPIROR. The data on the overall health status of the subjects was collected using the standard Respirator Medical Evaluation Questionnaire. The statistical analysis was carried out with SPSS PC software version 13. RESULTS: Traffic policemen recorded a significant decline in various parameters, such as forced vital capacity (FVC), forced expiratory volume in one second (FEV(1)), and peak expiratory flow rate (PEFR) when compared with controls, and is probably due to exposure to vehicular pollution. It was also observed that in traffic policemen with >8 years of exposure, the values of FVC (2.7 L), FEV(1) (1.8 L), and PEFR (7.5 L/s) were significantly lower than those obtained in traffic policemen with <8 years of exposure, in whom the values were 2.9 L, 2.3 L, and 7.7 L/s for FVC, FEV(1), and PEFR, respectively. CONCLUSION: The effect of pollution by vehicular exhausts may be responsible for these pulmonary function impairments. Medknow Publications 2011 /pmc/articles/PMC3213710/ /pubmed/22084537 http://dx.doi.org/10.4103/0970-2113.85685 Text en Copyright: © Lung India http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0 This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 Unported, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
spellingShingle Original Article
Gupta, Sharat
Mittal, Shallu
Kumar, Avnish
Singh, Kamal D.
Respiratory effects of air pollutants among nonsmoking traffic policemen of Patiala, India
title Respiratory effects of air pollutants among nonsmoking traffic policemen of Patiala, India
title_full Respiratory effects of air pollutants among nonsmoking traffic policemen of Patiala, India
title_fullStr Respiratory effects of air pollutants among nonsmoking traffic policemen of Patiala, India
title_full_unstemmed Respiratory effects of air pollutants among nonsmoking traffic policemen of Patiala, India
title_short Respiratory effects of air pollutants among nonsmoking traffic policemen of Patiala, India
title_sort respiratory effects of air pollutants among nonsmoking traffic policemen of patiala, india
topic Original Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3213710/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22084537
http://dx.doi.org/10.4103/0970-2113.85685
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