Respiratory Disease in Relation to Outdoor Air Pollution in Kanpur, India

This paper examines the effect of outdoor air pollution on respiratory disease in Kanpur, India, based on data from 2006. Exposure to air pollution is represented by annual emissions of sulfur dioxide (SO(2)), particulate matter (PM), and nitrogen oxides (NO(x)) from 11 source categories, established as a geographic information system (GIS)-based emission inventory in 2 km × 2 km grid. Respiratory disease is represented by number of patients who visited specialist pulmonary hospital with symptoms of respiratory disease. The results showed that (1) the main sources of air pollution are industries, domestic fuel burning, and vehicles; (2) the emissions of PM per grid are strongly correlated to the emissions of SO(2) and NO(x); and (3) there is a strong correlation between visits to a hospital due to respiratory disease and emission strength in the area of residence. These results clearly indicate that appropriate health and environmental monitoring, actions to reduce emissions to air, and further studies that would allow assessing the development in health status are necessary. [Supplementary materials are available for this article. Go to the publisher's online edition of Archives of Environmental & Occupational Health for material on emission of SO(2), PM, NO(x) from various sources, and total number of inhabitants, total number of patients in grid squares covering the Kanpur city.]