An estimated 1.85 million new pediatric asthma cases attributable to nitrogen dioxide globally in 2019<\/p>\n<\/h3>\n
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THURSDAY, Jan. 6, 2022 (HealthDay News) — Combustion-related nitrogen dioxide (NO2<\/sub>) accounted for 1.85 million new pediatric asthma cases worldwide in 2019, according to a study published online Jan. 5 in The Lancet Planetary Health<\/em>.<\/p>\n Susan C. Anenberg, Ph.D., from George Washington University in Washington, D.C., and colleagues estimated NO2<\/sub>-attributable pediatric asthma incidence by scaling an existing annual average NO2<\/sub> concentration dataset for 2010 to 2012 from a land use regression model to other years using NO2<\/sub> column densities from satellite and reanalysis datasets and applying these concentrations to population and baseline asthma rates.<\/p>\n The researchers estimated that in 2019, 1.85 million new pediatric asthma cases were attributable to NO2<\/sub> globally; two-thirds of these occurred in urban areas (1.22 million cases). From 2000 to 2019, there was a decrease observed in the proportion of pediatric asthma incidence that was attributable to NO2 <\/sub>in urban areas, from 19.8 to 16.0 percent of cases. Urban attributable fractions decreased in high-income countries; Latin America and the Caribbean; Central Europe, Eastern Europe, and Central Asia; and Southeast Asia, East Asia, and Oceania (\u00e2\u0088\u009241, \u00e2\u0088\u009216, \u00e2\u0088\u009213, and \u00e2\u0088\u00926 percent, respectively), while there were increases in South Asia, sub-Saharan Africa, and North Africa and the Middle East (+23, +11, and +5 percent, respectively).<\/p>\n “In places that have effective air quality management programs, NO2 <\/sub>concentrations have been trending downward for decades, with benefits for children’s respiratory health,” Anenberg said in a statement. “Even with these improvements, current NO2 <\/sub>levels contribute substantially to pediatric asthma incidence, highlighting that mitigating air pollution should be a critical element of children’s public health strategies.”<\/p>\n