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Human Health Risks and Air Quality Changes Following Restrictions for the Control of the COVID-19 Pandemic in Thailand

The coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic first impacted Thailand in early 2020. The government imposed lockdown measures from April to May 2020 to control the spread of infection. Daily lifestyles then morphed into a so-called new normal in which activities were conducted at home and people avoided congr...

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Autores principales: Kaewrat, Jenjira, Janta, Rungruang, Sichum, Surasak, Rattikansukha, Chuthamat, Tala, Wittaya, Kanabkaew, Thongchai
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2022
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9501010/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36136484
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/toxics10090520
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author Kaewrat, Jenjira
Janta, Rungruang
Sichum, Surasak
Rattikansukha, Chuthamat
Tala, Wittaya
Kanabkaew, Thongchai
author_facet Kaewrat, Jenjira
Janta, Rungruang
Sichum, Surasak
Rattikansukha, Chuthamat
Tala, Wittaya
Kanabkaew, Thongchai
author_sort Kaewrat, Jenjira
collection PubMed
description The coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic first impacted Thailand in early 2020. The government imposed lockdown measures from April to May 2020 to control the spread of infection. Daily lifestyles then morphed into a so-called new normal in which activities were conducted at home and people avoided congregation in order to prevent the spread of an infectious disease. This study evaluated the long-term air quality improvement which resulted from the restrictions enforced on normal human activities in Thailand. The air quality index (AQI) of six criteria pollutants and health risk assessments were evaluated in four areas, including metropolitan, suburban, industrial, and tourism areas in Thailand. The results showed that, after the restriction measures, the overall AQI improved by 30%. The subindex of each pollutant (sub-AQI) of most pollutants significantly improved (by 30%) in metropolitan areas after human activities changed due to the implementation of lockdown measures. With regard to industrial and tourism areas, only the sub-AQI of traffic-related pollutants decreased (34%) while the sub-AQIs of other pollutants before and after lockdown were similar. However, the changes in human activities were not clearly related to air quality improvement in the suburban area. The overall hazard index (HI) after lockdown decreased by 23% because of the reduction of traffic-related pollutants. However, the HI value remained above the recommended limits for the health of the adult residents in all areas. Therefore, strict regulations to control other pollutant sources, such as industry and open burning, will also be necessary for air quality improvement in Thailand.
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spelling pubmed-95010102022-09-24 Human Health Risks and Air Quality Changes Following Restrictions for the Control of the COVID-19 Pandemic in Thailand Kaewrat, Jenjira Janta, Rungruang Sichum, Surasak Rattikansukha, Chuthamat Tala, Wittaya Kanabkaew, Thongchai Toxics Article The coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic first impacted Thailand in early 2020. The government imposed lockdown measures from April to May 2020 to control the spread of infection. Daily lifestyles then morphed into a so-called new normal in which activities were conducted at home and people avoided congregation in order to prevent the spread of an infectious disease. This study evaluated the long-term air quality improvement which resulted from the restrictions enforced on normal human activities in Thailand. The air quality index (AQI) of six criteria pollutants and health risk assessments were evaluated in four areas, including metropolitan, suburban, industrial, and tourism areas in Thailand. The results showed that, after the restriction measures, the overall AQI improved by 30%. The subindex of each pollutant (sub-AQI) of most pollutants significantly improved (by 30%) in metropolitan areas after human activities changed due to the implementation of lockdown measures. With regard to industrial and tourism areas, only the sub-AQI of traffic-related pollutants decreased (34%) while the sub-AQIs of other pollutants before and after lockdown were similar. However, the changes in human activities were not clearly related to air quality improvement in the suburban area. The overall hazard index (HI) after lockdown decreased by 23% because of the reduction of traffic-related pollutants. However, the HI value remained above the recommended limits for the health of the adult residents in all areas. Therefore, strict regulations to control other pollutant sources, such as industry and open burning, will also be necessary for air quality improvement in Thailand. MDPI 2022-08-31 /pmc/articles/PMC9501010/ /pubmed/36136484 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/toxics10090520 Text en © 2022 by the authors. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Article
Kaewrat, Jenjira
Janta, Rungruang
Sichum, Surasak
Rattikansukha, Chuthamat
Tala, Wittaya
Kanabkaew, Thongchai
Human Health Risks and Air Quality Changes Following Restrictions for the Control of the COVID-19 Pandemic in Thailand
title Human Health Risks and Air Quality Changes Following Restrictions for the Control of the COVID-19 Pandemic in Thailand
title_full Human Health Risks and Air Quality Changes Following Restrictions for the Control of the COVID-19 Pandemic in Thailand
title_fullStr Human Health Risks and Air Quality Changes Following Restrictions for the Control of the COVID-19 Pandemic in Thailand
title_full_unstemmed Human Health Risks and Air Quality Changes Following Restrictions for the Control of the COVID-19 Pandemic in Thailand
title_short Human Health Risks and Air Quality Changes Following Restrictions for the Control of the COVID-19 Pandemic in Thailand
title_sort human health risks and air quality changes following restrictions for the control of the covid-19 pandemic in thailand
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9501010/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36136484
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/toxics10090520
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