Health-Based Approach to Determine Alert and Information Thresholds for Particulate Matter Air Pollution

In this study Health Impact Assessment (HIA) methods were used to evaluate potential health benefits related to keeping air pollution levels in Poland under certain threshold concentrations. Impacts of daily mean particulate matter (PM)10 levels on hospital admissions due to cardiovascular and respiratory diseases were considered. Relative risk coefficients were adopted from WHO HRAPIE project. The analyses covered period from 2015 to 2017, and were limited to the heating season (1st and 4th quarter of the year), when the highest PM10 concentrations occur. The national total number of hospital admissions attributed to PM10 concentration exceeding WHO daily Air Quality Guideline value of 50 µg/m3 was calculated for each of the 46 air quality zones established in Poland. We found that the reduction of the attributable hospital admissions by 75% or 50% of that expected for the “best case scenario”, with no days with PM10 concentration exceeding 50 µg/m3 would require avoidance of exceedance by the daily mean PM10 concentration of 64 µg/m3 and 83 µg/m3, respectively. These concentrations were proposed as the information and alert thresholds, respectively. The alert thresholds were exceeded on 2 and 38 days per year in the least and the most polluted zones, respectively. Exceedances of the information thresholds occurred on 6 and 66 days in these zones.