ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACTS OF GLOBALIZATION (AN EMPIRICAL EXAMINATION OF IRAN’S AGRICULTURE)

Growing development of various industries and the necessity for paying attention to sustainable development, on the one hand, and undesirable effects of environmental pollution on various agricultural and social aspects of countries, on the other hand, have caused environmental protection to be one of the main concerns of policymakers. Accordingly, in recent decades, a large amount of theoretical and empirical research has focused on the methods of improving environmental quality and related effective factors. This research mainly aims to investigate the impact of globalization and agricultural value-added on the amount of pollution arisen due to CO2 emissions in the agricultural sector in Iran. For this purpose, a distributed lag nonlinear model is used over the period 1979-2016. The results indicate that positive agricultural value-added and globalization shocks have a direct and inverse relationship with CO2 emissions, respectively. At the same time, a negative shock in agricultural value-added reduces the pollution of this sector. Moreover, the results indicate significant asymmetry between agricultural value-added and pollution in this sector. The results were obtained by the NARDL method, which is used for the first time to estimate the effect of agricultural value-added and globalization on pollution arisen from CO2 emissions in the Iranian agricultural sector.

Association Between Exposure To Air Pollutants and The Risk of Inflammatory Bowel Diseases Visits

Background The topic of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) has attracted more and more attentions. Accumulating evidence suggests that exposure to air pollutants is associated with IBD, yet the results are inconsistent and study about daily exposure is few. This study evaluated the association between daily air pollution and IBD in Hefei, China. Methods Daily IBD admission data were obtained from two hospitals in Hefei from January 1, 2019 to December 31, 2019. Daily concentrations of major air pollutants were provided by the Hefei Environmental Protection Bureau. Meteorological data were collected from China Meteorological Data Network. Distributed lag nonlinear model (DLNM) considering both the lag effects of exposure factors and nonlinear relationship of exposure-reaction was used to assess the effect of daily air pollutants exposure on IBD admission. Results During the study period, totally 886 cases of IBD were recruited, including 313 cases of ulcerative colitis (UC) and 573 cases of Crohn's disease (CD). The findings showed PM2.5, O3 and CO exposure significantly increased the risk of IBD. Mean concentrations of PM2.5, O3 and CO in Hefei were 43.85ug/m³, 100.78ug/m³, and 0.76mg/m³, respectively. Each increase of 10mg/m³ in PM2.5/ O3 and 0.1mg/m³ in CO increased the risk of IBD. The strongest effects of these three pollutants on IBD were observed in lag2-lag3 (RR = 1.037, 95% CI: 1.005–1.070%), lag3 (RR = 1.020, 95% CI: 1.002–1.038%) and lag2 (RR = 1.036, 95% CI: 1.003–1.071%), respectively. In warm seasons, PM2.5, O3 and CO had a stronger effect increased the risk of IBD, which were observed in lag2 (RR = 1.104, 95% CI: 1.032–1.181%), lag2 and lag5 (RR = 1.023, 95% CI: 1.002–1.044%; RR = 1.036, 95% CI: 1.004–1.069%) and lag2 (RR = 1.071, 95% CI: 1.012–1.133%), respectively. Conclusions Air pollutants (PM2.5, O3 and CO) exposure could increase the risk of IBD, while the most susceptibility seasons for the exposure were mainly in warm seasons. This study contributes to the knowledge of the association between air pollution and IBD, but the associations need to be verified by further studies.

Effects of Ambient Temperature and Fall Related Injuries in Ma'anshan, Anhui Province, China: A Distributed Lag Non-linear Analysis

Despite the significant economic cost of falls and injuries to individuals and communities, little is known about the impact of meteorological factors on the incidence of fall-related injuries (FRIs). Therefore, a time-series study was conducted to explore the effects of meteorological factors on FRIs in Ma'anshan City, East China. Injury data from 2011 to 2017 were collected from the National Injury Monitoring Station in Ma'anshan City. Meteorological data were obtained from the National Meteorological Information Center. A distributed lag nonlinear model was used in this study to evaluate the correlation between ambient temperature and fall injuries. The results showed a significant exposure-response relationship between temperature and FRIs in Ma'anshan City. There was an asymmetric U-shaped relationship between ambient temperature and injuries, if the lowest risk temperature (4°C) was used as the reference temperature. The high temperatures increases the risk of FRIs (RR = 1.110, 95%CI:1.005–1.225). Sensitivity to ambient temperature varied by different ages and genders, and the ≥ 60 years subgroup seemed to be more sensitive in low temperature (RR = 1.071, 95༅CI:1.024–1.120). The cumulative result is similar to the single-day effect. This study would help the establishment of fall-related injury prediction and provide evidence for the formulation and implementation of preventive strategies and measures in the future.

Temperature-Related Mortality in Helsinki Compared to Its Surrounding Region Over Two Decades, with Special Emphasis on Intensive Heatwaves

Urbanization and ongoing climate change increase the exposure of the populations to heat stress, and the urban heat island (UHI) effect may magnify heat-related mortality, especially during heatwaves. We studied temperature-related mortality in the city of Helsinki—with urban and suburban land uses—and in the surrounding Helsinki-Uusimaa hospital district (HUS-H, excluding Helsinki)—with more rural types of land uses—in southern Finland for two decades, 2000–2018. Dependence of the risk of daily all-cause deaths (all-age and 75+ years) on daily mean temperature was modelled using the distributed lag nonlinear model (DLNM). The modelled relationships were applied in assessing deaths attributable to four intensive heatwaves during the study period. The results showed that the heat-related mortality risk was substantially higher in Helsinki than in HUS-H, and the mortality rates attributable to four intensive heatwaves (2003, 2010, 2014 and 2018) were about 2.5 times higher in Helsinki than in HUS-H. Among the elderly, heat-related risks were also higher in Helsinki, while cold-related risks were higher in the surrounding region. The temperature ranges recorded in the fairly coarse resolution gridded datasets were not distinctly different in the two considered regions. It is therefore probable that the modelling underestimated the actual exposure to the heat stress in Helsinki. We also studied the modifying, short-term impact of air quality on the modelled temperature-mortality association in Helsinki; this effect was found to be small. We discuss a need for higher resolution data and modelling the UHI effect, and regional differences in vulnerability to thermal stress.

The short term burden of ambient gaseous air pollution on chronic obstructive pulmonary disease in Pudong New Area, China: A time-stratified case-crossover study with a distributed lag nonlinear model

Background: Air pollution is a severe and dangerous public health problem. However, the effect of ambient gaseous air pollution exposure on years of life lost (YLL) attributable to chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) mortality has not been quantitatively verified.Methods: We collected the data of 12,781 COPD deaths and ambient gaseous air pollutants, including sulfur dioxide (SO2), nitrogen dioxide (NO2), Carbon monoxide (CO), and ozone (O3), during the years 2013-2019 in the Shanghai Pudong New Area (PNA). Then we performed a time-stratified case-crossover study combined with a distributed lag nonlinear model (DLNM) to estimate the impact of those air pollutants on daily COPD deaths counts and YLL. The confounders including long-term trend and meteorological factors have been controlled for, and effects of age and educational attainment as effect modifiers have also been evaluated.Results: During the 2013-2019 time frame, increases of 10μg/m3 in SO2 and NO2 were associated with a 4.93% (95% CI: 1.47%, 8.50%) and 1.47% (95% CI: 0.14%, 2.82%) in daily COPD death counts at lag0-1day, respectively, a 2.52 (95% CI: 0.31, 4.72) YLL increase and 0.85 (95% CI: 0.01, 1.68) YLL increase at lag0-1day, respectively. A 1mg/m3 increase in CO was associated with a 9.46% (95% CI: 0.40%, 19.35%) at lag0 increase in daily COPD death counts. No significant impact from O3 on both daily COPD deaths counts and YLL (P>0.05). The impact of gaseous air pollutants on the daily COPD death count and YLL were significant in populations of older adults and the lower educated population, while an insignificant effect was observed in the younger population and higher educated population. The YLL due to COPD related to SO2 and CO for the lower educated population was significantly higher than those for the higher educated population.Conclusion: Reducing specific gaseous air pollutants will help to control COPD deaths and improve the population’s life expectancy.

Association between extreme heat and hospital admissions for cataract patients in Hefei, China

Cataract is the first cause of blindness and the major cause of visual impairment worldwide. Under conditions of global warming, researchers have begun to give attention to the influence of increasing temperature on cataract patients. Our paper aimed to investigate the association between extreme heat and hospital admissions for cataract in Hefei, China. Based on data from the New Rural Cooperative Medical System and National Meteorological Information Center, we used a generalized additive model and a distributed lag nonlinear model to examine the relationship between extreme heat and hospitalizations for cataract, with consideration of cumulative and lagged effects. When current mean temperature was above 28 °C, each 1 °C rise was associated with a 4% decrease in the number of cataract admissions (RR = 0.96, 95% CI = 0.94–0.98). The cumulative relative risk over 11 days of lag was the lowest, which indicated that every 1 °C increase in mean temperature above 28 °C was associated with a 19% decrease in the number of hospital admissions for cataract (RR = 0.81, 95% CI = 0.75–0.88). In subgroup analyses, the negative association between extreme heat and hospital admissions for cataract was stronger among patients who were not admitted to provincial-level hospitals. In conclusion, this paper found that extreme heat was negatively associated with cataract hospitalizations in Hefei, providing useful information for hospitals and policymakers.

Heat ascribed mortality in southeast England

<p>Global warming induced climate change is bringing periods of extremely hot summer days called heatwaves across the world. Its frequency, intensity and magnitude have escalated multifold in recent decades and have been predicted to keep intensifying. Many past studies have only focused on cities for heatwave risk assessment overlooking the risks in suburban and rural areas. The aim of this work is to form a scientific framework for preparing and managing the human-health impacts of heatwaves in more pastoral regions. We associated  the extreme temperature with mortality to evaluate its risk using recent data on daily-deaths and maximum temperature from nine counties of southeast England for the period of 1981-2014. The reproduced methodology will also be applied to OPERANDUM project’s test regions called open-air laboratories across Europe. The relationship between temperature and daily-deaths has been examined using  a poisson regression model combined with a distributed-lag nonlinear model (DLNM). We computed the absolute excess (numbers) and relative excess (fraction) deaths owed to temperature or relative risk (RR) of mortality by comparing the extremely hot temperature (99<sup>th</sup> percentile) with the minimum mortality temperature (MMT). Total heat ascribed mortality is given by the sum of the contributions from all the days of the time-series, and its ratio with the total number of deaths. Significant and non-linear associations between temperature and daily-deaths were noticed. The overall cumulative RR at the extremely hot vs. MMT was 1.292 (95% CI: 1.251–1.333). The results of this study can help in location-centric heat management action plans to certain areas at most risk.</p><p>Acknowledgements: This work is supported by the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme; funded by and carried out within the framework of OPERANDUM project (Grant no. 776848).</p><p><strong>Key words</strong>: Heatwaves, climate change, mortality, DLNM, risk.</p>