Air Quality and Health Effects

Air pollution remains a major environmental health challenge in both developed and developing countries. Epidemiological studies have uncovered clear relationships of poor air quality from exposure to both indoor and outdoor sources with negative health outcomes, including mortality by cardiovascular and respiratory diseases and other adverse effects. Because of the complex and interdisciplinary nature of air quality-health relationships, there remain many open questions should be investigated to improve the comprehension in the direction of therapies and to provide a basis for the targeted and optimal control of air pollution emissions.

We are interested in designing and implementing innovative instruments and new solutions with the aim to contribute to:

• multidisciplinary and integrated researches on health impacts, including laboratory experiments and field measurements to advance mechanistic, molecular and toxicological-level understanding of health impacts by air pollutants (gas and aerosol phase).
• improving the identification and quantification of atmospheric pollutants, as well as their time and spatial distribution, essential for conducting epidemiological studies and validating models.
• investigating the role of specific pollutants, including “not regulated” or new pollutants, as well as sources on adverse health impacts.
• consolidation and optimization of unified methodological and experimental approaches to assess air quality health effect, including best proxy indicators to measure (i.e. oxidative potential).