[Meteo-diffusive analysis: a case-study of Turin]. / L'analisi meteo-diffusiva: il caso studio della città di Torino.

The Planetary Boundary Layer (PBL) affects the pollutant dispersion process. Within the EpiAir Project (Air pollution and health: epidemiological surveillance and prevention) we performed a preliminary analysis to identify adverse (or opportune) situation for pollutant dispersion. Knowledge of the meteo-diffusive peculiarity of a city is an efficient support in identifying and planning preventive actions.

LIFE Med Hiss: An innovative cohort design for public health.

The aim of MED HISS methodology was to test the effectiveness of a low-cost approach to study long-term effects of air pollution, applicable in all European countries. This approach is potentially exportable to other environmental issues where a cohort representative of the country population is needed. The cohort is derived from the National Health Interview Survey, compulsory in European countries, which has information on individual lifestyle factors. In Life Med Hiss approach, subjects recruited have been linked at individual level with health data and have been then followed-up for mortality and hospital admissions outcomes. Exposure values of air pollution (PM2.5 and NO2) have been assigned using national dispersion models, enhanced by the information derived from monitoring station with data fusion techniques, and then upscaled at municipality level (highest level of detail achievable for the Italian Survey). Results for mortality have been used to test the effectiveness of this methodology and are encouraging if compared with European ones. The advantages of this technique are summarized below: •It uses a cohort already available and compulsory in European countries•It uses air quality modelling data, available for most of the countries•It permits to implement versatile environmental surveillance systems.

The association of air pollution and greenness with mortality and life expectancy in Spain: A small-area study.

BACKGROUND: Air pollution exposure has been associated with an increase in mortality rates, but few studies have focused on life expectancy, and most studies had restricted spatial coverage. A limited body of evidence is also suggestive for a beneficial association between residential exposure to greenness and mortality, but the evidence for such an association with life expectancy is still very scarce. OBJECTIVE: To investigate the association of exposure to air pollution and greenness with mortality and life expectancy in Spain. METHODS: Mortality data from 2148 small areas (average population of 20,750 inhabitants, and median population of 7672 inhabitants) covering Spain for years 2009-2013 were obtained. Average annual levels of PM10, PM2.5, NO2 and O3 were derived from an air quality forecasting system at 4×4km resolution. The normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) was used to assess greenness in each small area. Air pollution and greenness were linked to standardized mortality rates (SMRs) using Poisson regression and to life expectancy using linear regression. The models were adjusted for socioeconomic status and lung cancer mortality rates (as a proxy for smoking), and accounted for spatial autocorrelation. RESULTS: The increase of 5µg/m3 in PM10, NO2 and O3 or of 2µg/m3 in PM2.5 concentration resulted in a loss of life in years of 0.90 (95% credibility interval CI: 0.83, 0.98), 0.13 (95% CI: 0.09, 0.17), 0.20years (95% CI: 0.16, 0.24) and 0.64 (0.59, 0.70), respectively. Similar associations were found in the SMR analysis, with stronger associations for PM2.5 and PM10, which were associated with an increased mortality risk of 3.7% (95% CI: 3.5%, 4.0%) and 5.7% (95% CI: 5.4%, 6.1%). For greenness, a protective effect on mortality and longer life expectancy was only found in areas with lower socioeconomic status. CONCLUSIONS: Air pollution concentrations were associated to important reductions in life expectancy. The reduction of air pollution should be a priority for public health.