Air pollution at home may make you more likely to catch COVID-19

Embargoed until: Publicly released: 2022-04-21 01:00

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Short-term exposure to air pollution in the home (particulate matter smaller than 2.5 μm [PM2.5], particulate matter smaller than 10 μm [PM10], and black carbon [BC]) may increase the risk of contracting COVID-19, according to Swedish and Italian scientists. They studied 425 COVID-19 patients from a wider Swedish medical database, and found estimated short-term exposure to particulate matter and BC was associated with an increased risk of positive PRC test results for COVID-19. This type of study cannot show that increased air pollution actually caused an increase in COVID-19 risk, but the authors say the findings support the broad public health benefits of reducing air pollution levels.

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Journal/
conference: JAMA Network Open

Research:Paper

Organisation/s: Karolinska Institutet, Sweden

Funder: This study was supported by grant FORTE 2017-01146 from the Swedish Research Council for Health,Working Life andWelfare (Dr Gruzieva); BAMSE (Children, Allergy Milieu, Stockholm, Epidemiology [in Swedish]) is supported by the Swedish Research Council, the Swedish Heart-Lung Foundation, and Region Stockholm (Medical Training and Research Agreement and Centre for Occupational and Environmental Medicine).

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