Department of Medical, Surgical and Experimental Sciences, University of Sassari, 07100, Sassari, Italy.
Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering and Architecture, University of Cagliari, 09123, Cagliari, Italy.
Environ Res. 2021 Jan;192:110459. doi: 10.1016/j.envres.2020.110459. Epub 2020 Nov 11.
The present work aims to study the role of air pollutants in relation to the number of deaths per each Italian province affected by COVID-19. To do that, specific mortality from COVID-19 has been standardized for each Italian province and per age group (10 groups) ranging from 0 to 9 years to >90 years, based on the 2019 national population figures. The link between air pollutants and COVID-19 mortality among Italian provinces was studied implementing a linear regression model, whereas the wide set of variables were examined by means of LISA (Local Indicators of Spatial Autocorrelation), relating the spatial component of COVID-19 related data with a mix of environmental variables as explanatory variables. As results, in some provinces, namely the Western Po Valley provinces, the SMR (Standardized Mortality Ratio) is much higher than expected, and the presence of PM was independently associated with the case status. Furthermore, the results for LISA on SMR and PM demonstrate clusters of high-high values in the wide Metropolitan area of Milan and the Po Valley area respectively, with a certain level of overlap of the two distributions in the area strictly considered Milan. In conclusion, this research appears to find elements to confirm the existence of a link between pollution and the risk of death due to the disease, in particular, considering land take and air pollution, this latter referred to particulate (PM). For this reason, we can reiterate the need to act in favour of policies aimed at reducing pollutants in the atmosphere, by means of speeding up the already existing plans and policies, targeting all sources of atmospheric pollution: industries, home heating and traffic.
本研究旨在探讨空气污染物与意大利各受 COVID-19 影响省份死亡人数之间的关系。为此，根据 2019 年全国人口数据，对意大利各省份 COVID-19 的特定死亡率进行了标准化处理，按年龄组（10 个组）进行了标准化处理，年龄范围从 0 至 9 岁到>90 岁。通过线性回归模型研究了空气污染物与意大利各省份 COVID-19 死亡率之间的关系，同时通过 LISA（空间自相关局部指标）检验了广泛的变量，将 COVID-19 相关数据的空间成分与环境变量组合作为解释变量进行了关联。结果表明，在一些省份，即波河河谷西部省份，SMR（标准化死亡率）明显高于预期，PM 浓度与病例状况独立相关。此外，SMR 和 PM 的 LISA 结果表明，米兰大都市地区和波河谷地区的高值集聚区明显存在，两个分布区在米兰市区有一定程度的重叠。总之，本研究似乎找到了一些证据证实了污染与疾病死亡风险之间存在关联，特别是考虑到土地利用和空气污染，后者是指颗粒物（PM）。因此，我们可以重申，需要采取行动，支持旨在减少大气污染物的政策，加速已经存在的计划和政策，针对所有大气污染源：工业、家庭取暖和交通。
