World Heart Federation Air Pollution Expert Group, School of Population and Public Health, The University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada; Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA.
European Society of Cardiology, Radcliffe Department of Medicine, University of Oxford, Oxford, United Kingdom.
J Am Coll Cardiol. 2021 Apr 6;77(13):1684-1688. doi: 10.1016/j.jacc.2020.12.003. Epub 2021 Jan 28.
Although the attention of the world and the global health community specifically is deservedly focused on the COVID-19 pandemic, other determinants of health continue to have large impacts and may also interact with COVID-19. Air pollution is one crucial example. Established evidence from other respiratory viruses and emerging evidence for COVID-19 specifically indicates that air pollution alters respiratory defense mechanisms leading to worsened infection severity. Air pollution also contributes to co-morbidities that are known to worsen outcomes amongst those infected with COVID-19, and air pollution may also enhance infection transmission due to its impact on more frequent coughing. Yet despite the massive disruption of the COVID-19 pandemic, there are reasons for optimism: broad societal lockdowns have shown us a glimpse of what a future with strong air pollution measures could yield. Thus, the urgency to combat air pollution is not diminished, but instead heightened in the context of the pandemic.
尽管全世界和全球卫生界的注意力理应集中在 COVID-19 大流行上，但其他健康决定因素仍在产生重大影响，并且可能与 COVID-19 相互作用。空气污染就是一个关键例子。其他呼吸道病毒的既定证据以及 COVID-19 的新出现证据表明，空气污染改变了呼吸道防御机制，导致感染严重程度恶化。空气污染还促成了已知会使 COVID-19 感染者的预后恶化的合并症，并且空气污染也可能因影响更频繁的咳嗽而增强感染传播。然而，尽管 COVID-19 大流行造成了巨大破坏，但仍有理由感到乐观：广泛的社会封锁让我们看到了采取强有力的空气污染措施的未来可能带来的好处。因此，在大流行背景下，与空气污染作斗争的紧迫性并没有减弱，反而更加紧迫。
