News - A Look Back at the Air Pollution Alert

An alert regarding spikes in air pollution was issued last week in several French cities.

In Brittany, on March 12, the Air Breizh association (http://www.airbreizh.asso.fr/) measured concentrations of fine particulate matter (PM10) exceeding the recommended and information thresholds in the Rennes metropolitan area and the departments of Finistère, Morbihan, and Côtes d'Armor. From March 13 to 16, alert thresholds were exceeded in these same geographic areas.

A regional analysis based on data from the SurSaUD® monitoring system (overall activity, asthma, fainting spells, dyspnea/acute respiratory failure, chronic bronchitis, heart failure, myocardial ischemia, headache) across different age groups did not reveal any particular increase in the use of community and hospital emergency services over the past few days.

However, several studies have shown that there does not appear to be a protective threshold below which no health impact is observed. The health effects of air pollution are observed even at the lowest concentrations, even in the absence of pollution "spikes." Thus, given the relative rarity of air pollution spikes in the region over the course of a year, the health impact of air pollution is primarily due to background levels of air pollution. Several cohort studies have shown that the long-term impact of chronic exposure to air pollution is significantly greater in terms of mortality or life expectancy than the short-term impacts observed.