Department of Sociology, University of Warwick, Coventry CV4 7AL, United Kingdom.
Environ Int. 2019 Nov;132:104812. doi: 10.1016/j.envint.2019.05.006. Epub 2019 Aug 14.
Pollutants released from the petrochemical industry are thought to increase the risk of mortality in fence-line communities, yet the results from previous studies are often inconsistent and lack a global perspective, hampered by the absence of cohesive cross-country research.
To provide the first Pan-European analysis of benzene exposures from the petrochemical industry, connecting polluting practices to pollution episodes and disparities in regional mortality rates, identifying the measures of best environmental practice to mitigate adverse outcomes.
The activity, classification and location of onshore petrochemical facilities within EU-28 Member States were extracted from the 'European Pollutant Release and Transfer Register' (E-PRTR), which holds records on 31,753 industrial operations for the reporting period of 2007-15. Parent company records were collected from the Moody's Analytics Amadeus database of 487,338 active companies across Europe. The EUROSTAT census provided records of income, life expectancy, and the underlying demographics used to calculate standardised health outcomes based on 9,936 sub-populations within the NUTS2 regions. The European Environment Agency provided ambient concentrations of benzene from 579 air quality stations. Bayesian multilevel models were constructed to account for variability caused by spatial hierarchical structures, uncertainty in the estimates, and to incorporate both individual and group-level influences.
Higher levels of benzene emissions from petrochemical operations, both overall and in terms of specific pollution events, were associated with increased mortality rates for nearby residential populations, particularly in areas with socioeconomic deprivation. We identify uneven patterns of polluting practices within the industry, and locations that require epidemiological studies.
While petrochemical facilities in all European Union regions are regulated to be compliant with the annual average benzene limit of 5 μg/m, uneven exposures still present regional health inequalities. We recommend extending benzene regulations to an hourly or daily limit, alongside the strengthening of regulation for other toxic petrochemical releases.
石化行业排放的污染物被认为会增加围栏社区居民的死亡率，但之前的研究结果往往不一致，且缺乏全球视角，因为缺乏跨国的综合研究。
提供石化行业苯暴露的首个泛欧分析，将污染行为与污染事件以及区域死亡率差异联系起来，确定减轻不良后果的最佳环境实践措施。
从“欧洲污染物排放和转移登记册”（E-PRTR）中提取了欧盟 28 个成员国陆上石化设施的活动、分类和位置，该登记册记录了 2007-15 年报告期间 31753 个工业作业。从穆迪分析的欧洲活跃公司 Amadeus 数据库中收集了母公司的记录，该数据库涵盖了欧洲 487338 家活跃公司。欧盟统计局的普查提供了收入、预期寿命以及底层人口统计数据的记录，用于根据 NUTS2 区域的 9936 个亚人群计算基于标准化的健康结果。欧洲环境署提供了 579 个空气质量站的苯环境浓度。构建了贝叶斯多层模型，以解释由空间层次结构、估计不确定性引起的变异性，并将个体和群体层面的影响纳入其中。
石化作业产生的苯排放量较高，无论是总体排放量还是特定污染事件排放量，都与附近居住人口死亡率升高有关，尤其是在社会经济贫困地区。我们发现该行业的污染行为存在不均匀模式，需要在这些地区进行流行病学研究。
虽然欧盟所有地区的石化设施都受到监管，以符合每年平均 5μg/m 的苯限值，但不均匀的暴露仍然导致了区域健康不平等。我们建议将苯的法规扩展到小时或日限值，并加强对其他有毒石化排放物的监管。
