Lwin Kaung Suu, Tobias Aurelio, Chua Paul Lester, Yuan Lei, Thawonmas Ramita, Ith Sophearen, Htay Zin Wai, Yu Lin Szu, Yamasaki Lisa, Roqué Marta, Querol Xavier, Fussell Julia C, Nadeau Kari Christine, Stafoggia Massimo, Saliba Najat A, Sheng Ng Chris Fook, Hashizume Masahiro
Department of Global Health Policy Graduate School of Medicine The University of Tokyo Tokyo Japan.
Institute of Environmental Assessment and Water Research Spanish Council for Scientific Research Barcelona Spain.
Geohealth. 2023 Mar 1;7(3):e2022GH000728. doi: 10.1029/2022GH000728. eCollection 2023 Mar.
Desert dust and sandstorms are recurring environmental phenomena that are reported to produce serious health risks worldwide. This scoping review was conducted to identify the most likely health effects of desert dust and sandstorms and the methods used to characterize desert dust exposure from the existing epidemiological literature. We systematically searched PubMed/MEDLINE, Web of Science, and Scopus to identify studies that reported the effects of desert dust and sandstorms on human health. Search terms referred to desert dust or sandstorm exposure, names of major deserts, and health outcomes. Health effects were cross-tabulated with study design variables (e.g., epidemiological design and methods to quantify dust exposure), desert dust source, health outcomes and conditions. We identified 204 studies that met the inclusion criteria for the scoping review. More than half of the studies (52.9%) used a time-series study design. However, we found a substantial variation in the methods used to identify and quantify desert dust exposure. The binary metric of dust exposure was more frequently used than the continuous metric for all desert dust source locations. Most studies (84.8%) reported significant associations between desert dust and adverse health effects, mainly for respiratory and cardiovascular mortality and morbidity causes. Although there is a large body of evidence on the health effects of desert dust and sandstorms, the existing epidemiological studies have significant limitations related to exposure measurement and statistical analysis that potentially contribute to inconsistencies in determining the effect of desert dust on human health.
沙漠沙尘和沙尘暴是反复出现的环境现象，据报道在全球范围内会产生严重的健康风险。本综述旨在确定沙漠沙尘和沙尘暴最可能产生的健康影响，以及从现有流行病学文献中描述沙漠沙尘暴露的方法。我们系统地检索了PubMed/MEDLINE、科学网和Scopus，以确定报告沙漠沙尘和沙尘暴对人类健康影响的研究。检索词涉及沙漠沙尘或沙尘暴暴露、主要沙漠名称以及健康结果。将健康影响与研究设计变量（如流行病学设计和量化沙尘暴露的方法）、沙漠沙尘来源、健康结果和状况进行交叉列表。我们确定了204项符合综述纳入标准的研究。超过一半的研究（52.9%）采用了时间序列研究设计。然而，我们发现用于识别和量化沙漠沙尘暴露的方法存在很大差异。对于所有沙漠沙尘源位置，沙尘暴露的二元度量比连续度量更常用。大多数研究（84.8%）报告了沙漠沙尘与不良健康影响之间的显著关联，主要是呼吸道和心血管疾病的死亡率和发病率。尽管有大量关于沙漠沙尘和沙尘暴对健康影响的证据，但现有的流行病学研究在暴露测量和统计分析方面存在重大局限性，这可能导致在确定沙漠沙尘对人类健康的影响时出现不一致。
