Health impact assessment of air pollution in the eight major Italian cities
| By | World Health Organisation |
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| Description | This report describes a research project carried out by the European Centre for Environment and Health of the World Health Organization to assess the health impact of urban air pollution in Italy. The project was based on the 8 cities in Italy with a population greater than 400 000 people and was developed in two phases, beginning in 1998 with a financial contribution from the Italian Ministry of Environment. The first phase of the project gathered data on urban air pollution, and the second phase had the objective assessing the health impact. In the first phase, the difficulties with using the data as recorded in the local databases became apparent: the collection and storage methods differed from city to city and the classification criteria of the air quality monitoring stations are not standardised. Although the air quality monitoring networks (i.e. the location and number of the monitoring stations) have been designed to monitor a large number of pollutants, the data have not been extensively used. Thus, an expert group (named 'Itaria') was set up to support the process. The group provided hourly data for a six-year period and informed the choice and weight of monitoring stations for exposure assessment. The work of the group is still in progress and the association itself is currently a very important consultancy working group for issues relating to air quality monitoring. Also the second phase of the project (i.e. the health impact assessment of urban air pollution) has been based on a collaborative effort, involving a large group of advisors and consultants. As a result, the report draws on existing expertise and literature to quantitatively estimate the current health effects attributable to air pollution in the eight major Italian cities, using PM10 as a proxy for concurrent exposures to different pollutants. These eight cities constitute 15% of the population of Italy and include: Genoa, Turin, Milan, Bologna, Florence, Rome, Naples and Palermo. Full ReferenceWorld Health Organisation, Regional Office for Europe, Undated. |
| File size | 167 kB |
| Date | 11-08-2003 at 08h32 |