Department of Health and Human Performance, College of Charleston, Charleston, SC 29424, USA.
Int J Environ Res Public Health. 2022 Jan 5;19(1):592. doi: 10.3390/ijerph19010592.
In 2019, a novel coronavirus, SARS-CoV-2, was first reported in Wuhan, China. The virus causes the disease commonly known as COVID-19, and, since its emergence, it has infected over 252 million individuals globally and taken the lives of over 5 million in the same time span. Primary research on SARS-CoV-2 and COVID-19 focused on understanding the biomolecular composition of the virus. This research has led to the development of multiple vaccines with great efficacy and antiviral treatments for the disease. The development of biomedical interventions has been crucial to combating this pandemic; additionally, environmental confounding variables that could have exacerbated the pandemic need further assessment. In this research study, we conducted a spatial analysis of particulate matter (PM) concentration and its association with COVID-19 mortality in the United States. Results of this study demonstrate a significant positive correlation between PM concentration levels and COVID-19 mortality; however, this does not necessarily imply a causal relationship. These results are consistent with similar studies in Italy and China, where significant COVID-19 cases and corresponding deaths were exhibited. Furthermore, maps of the data demonstrate clustering of COVID-19 mortality which suggest further investigation into the social determinants of health impacting the pandemic.
2019 年，一种新型冠状病毒 SARS-CoV-2 在中国武汉首次被报道。该病毒引起了通常被称为 COVID-19 的疾病，自出现以来，它已在全球感染了超过 2.52 亿人，并在同一时间内夺走了超过 500 万人的生命。对 SARS-CoV-2 和 COVID-19 的初步研究集中在了解病毒的生物分子组成上。这项研究导致了多种具有高疗效的疫苗和抗病毒治疗方法的发展。生物医学干预措施的发展对于抗击这一流行病至关重要；此外，需要进一步评估可能使大流行恶化的环境混杂变量。在这项研究中，我们对美国的颗粒物 (PM) 浓度及其与 COVID-19 死亡率的关系进行了空间分析。这项研究的结果表明，PM 浓度水平与 COVID-19 死亡率之间存在显著的正相关关系；但这并不一定意味着存在因果关系。这些结果与意大利和中国的类似研究一致，在这些研究中，意大利和中国都出现了大量 COVID-19 病例和相应的死亡病例。此外，数据地图显示 COVID-19 死亡率的聚类现象，这表明需要进一步调查影响大流行的健康的社会决定因素。
