Barbara Hoffmann’s research while affiliated with Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf and other places

... However, ultra fine particles and other pollutant concentrations are known to fluctuate and local exposure depends strongly on the transmission conditions as well as the spatial and temporal behavior of pollutant sources [20]. The challenges arise from the complexity of identifying the sources of pollution and their impact on local ambient concentration levels [21]. For example, Dröge et al. [22] showed the significance of pollutant transmission for ultra fine particle concentrations from air traffic and the high temporal variations. ...

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A Digital Urban Twin Enabling Interactive Pollution Predictions and Enhanced Planning

... The cumulative nature of COPD, which involves ongoing damage to the airways, makes individuals with this condition more susceptible to the harmful effects of elevated pollution. Similarly, tuberculosis, an infectious disease, can become more severe in individuals living in polluted environments, as air pollution may impair lung defenses and increase susceptibility to infections [3,7,8]. ...

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Assessing the Impact of Air Quality and Socioeconomic Conditions on Respiratory Disease Incidence

... Chronic kidney disease (CKD) is estimated to directly cause 1.2 million premature deaths annually and to indirectly cause a further 1.4 million premature deaths through cardiovascular diseases attributable to impaired kidney function [7]. A number of recent epidemiological studies have shown an association between exposure to air pollution and CKD, including a recent study at low exposure levels in southern Sweden [36,62,83]. The epidemiological evidence has been corroborated by experimental studies that have shown renal vascular dysfunction, renal fibrosis, glomerular and tubular injury, and markers of impaired filtration capacity following both acute and sub-chronic exposure to high particle levels [1,4,10,30,49,50,78,84]. ...

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Long-term ambient air pollution exposure and renal function and biomarkers of renal disease

... Additionally, O 3 and PM 2.5 exhibited a significant additive interaction on the prevalence of insulin resistance, suggesting that reducing exposure to these pollutants could alleviate the health and economic burden associated with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. Furthermore, Niedermayer et al. [14] identified significant sex differences in the impact of environmental exposure on MDs, with nitrogen oxides exposure increasing diabetes prevalence by 1.49 times in males but not in females. Despite accumulating evidence linking APs to MDs, the spatial distribution of this relationship and its connection to regional health disparities remain under-explored. ...

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Spatial analysis of air pollutant exposure and its association with metabolic diseases using machine learning

... The estimated European burden of mortality attributable to PM 2.5 has increased considerably because of the use of this new model in a health impact assessment [45]. Sigsgaard and Hoffmann [70] have underlined that the use of the global linear CRF underlying the 2021 WHO Air Quality Guidelines [12] resulted in a disease burden of 275,000 premature deaths attributable to PM 2.5 exposure in Europe in 2020 (Soares et al. [71]), but when applying estimates from the supralinear concentration-response functions the resulting disease burden in Europe from PM 2.5 and NO 2 would be much larger (i.e., by ∼40% for PM 2.5 and ∼110% for NO 2 ). Weichenthal et al. [82] indicated that considering a supralinear CRF for outdoor PM 2.5 and mortality at the low end of the exposure distribution results in more than 1.5 million additional attributable deaths each year globally. ...

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The last decade of air pollution epidemiology and the challenges of quantitative risk assessment

... 17 Despite the growing recognition of the importance of UFPs, infrastructure networks like ACTRIS Data Centre in Europe that have started quantifying long-term particle number and size distribution (PNSD) data. 18 Nevertheless, developing and evaluating relevant policies remains challenging. While recent scientific advancements have emphasized the significance of PNSD in understanding the physical and chemical properties and impacts of UFPs, 19−21 there is still a notable scarcity of PNSD data on a global scale. ...

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Challenges in Observation of Ultrafine Particles: Addressing Estimation Miscalculations and the Necessity of Temporal Trends

... Similarly, most research confirms a positive correlation between PM 2.5 exposure and the incidence and mortality of GC. 12,19,43 However, some studies present conflicting results. Weinmayr et al., 13 Guo et al., 44 and Nagel et al. 45 ...

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Does ambient particulate matter 1 increase the risk of gastric cancer in the northwest of China?

... outdoor air pollution is the most significant environmental risk factor for premature death worldwide [8]. In Europe in 2021, PM 2.5 was responsible for 432,000 premature deaths, of which 253,000 occurred at levels over the recommended WHO AQG of 5 μg/m 3 [1]. By contrast, 91% of premature deaths due to air pollution-induced environmental effects occur in low-and middle-income countries in South-East Asia [5]. ...

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Urgent Call to Ensure Clean Air in South Asia -A Growing But Neglected Public Health Emergency

... However, findings from other large-scale prospective cohort studies of mortality in the US [3] and Denmark [4] have not reported evidence for associations with PM 2.5 or other ambient air pollutants. However, a recent pooled study of low-level air pollution in Europe showed associations of NO 2 with leukaemia and PM 2.5 with lymphoma [5]. Findings from case-control studies [6][7][8] have been equally inconsistent though some positive associations were reported among sub-populations. ...

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Outdoor air pollution and risk of incident adult haematologic cancer subtypes in a large US prospective cohort

... BEAR is the first study in Germany to assess short-and long-term airportrelated exposuresparticularly of UFPsand to investigate their associations with the pulmonary, cardiovascular, and cognitive health of primary school children. For more details on the BEAR study design, please refer to Soppa et al. (2023). Within the framework of this study measurements of outdoor PNC at the participating schools were conducted (short-term measurements). ...

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Aerosol particle number concentration, ultrafine particle number fraction, and new particle formation measurements near the international airports in Berlin, Germany – First results from the BEAR study