Chemical mixtures in atmospheric aerosols and their correlation to lung diseases and lung cancer occurence in the general population.

Several chemical and epidemiological investigations have been done during the last decade showing that correlations do exist between ambient air concentrations of aerodisperse (particulate) pollutants and the health risk for the general population. Based on these recently published results, there are on-going discussions and considerations proposing changes in air particulate pollution definitions, measurement, analysis and air quality standards. In this review, we summarize the "chemical standpoint" of this problem and its impact on the measurement strategy and air quality standard assessment.