PMCardImpact – Exposure to fine particles (PM2.5) and cardiovascular disease

PMCardImpact – Exposure to fine particles (PM2.5) and cardiovascular disease

Pollution is an important environmental factor for the exponential increase of high-impact diseases worldwide. This trend is alarming not just because of the increasing of this related pollution diseases, but also the growth of the costs associated to the public health treatment for prevalent diseases such as cardiovascular diseases (CVD) - ischemic heart disease and stroke – all of them associated with air pollution.

The American Heart Association presented evidence of causal relationship between particulate matter (PM2.5) and cardiovascular morbidity and mortality.

To tackle the scarcity of data and analysis of the disease and economic impact related to pollution in Portugal, a project has been opened – PMCardImpact. The main goals are essentially to evaluate the risks of exposure of the population to PM2.5 through the review of available studies and environmental monitoring data, to study the causal relationship between cardiovascular diseases and exposure to the particulate matter in Portugal, to estimate the burden of disease and the economic impact associated with this exposure, and identify areas for public health and environmental intervention with the greater cost-effectiveness.

This project is in the hands of a multidisciplinary team, with the support of two scientific advisers, which includes researchers specialized in public health, environmental health, epidemiology, risk assessment, burden of disease, economic assessment in health and cardiology.

The PMCardImpact project will gather its studies and evidence about the causal relationship between pollution – high-impact and high-mortality diseases – health costs and will make all this information available to policy makers in order to motivate change and decisions to help fight this problem through policy implementations that are aimed at reducing atmospheric pollution.

The integrated researchers of CHRC and ENSP - NOVA who are involved in this project team are Researcher Carla Martins (PI/head of the project) and Prof. Susana Viegas (co-PI), Prof. Florentino Serranheira, Prof. Julian Perelman, with the help of scientific advice from Prof. Ana Timóteo (from NOVA Medical School).

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Author

Andreia Santos

Researchers

Julian Perelman

Carla Martins

Florentino Serranheira

Susana Viegas