IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jijerp/v15y2018i3p427-d134161.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

A Narrative Review on the Human Health Effects of Ambient Air Pollution in Sub-Saharan Africa: An Urgent Need for Health Effects Studies

Author

Listed:
  • Eric Coker

    (School of Public Health, University of California-Berkeley, Berkeley, CA 94704, USA)

  • Samuel Kizito

    (College of Health Sciences, Makerere University, Kampala, Uganda)

Abstract

An important aspect of the new sustainable development goals (SDGs) is a greater emphasis on reducing the health impacts from ambient air pollution in developing countries. Meanwhile, the burden of human disease attributable to ambient air pollution in sub-Saharan Africa is growing, yet estimates of its impact on the region are possibly underestimated due to a lack of air quality monitoring, a paucity of air pollution epidemiological studies, and important population vulnerabilities in the region. The lack of ambient air pollution epidemiologic data in sub-Saharan Africa is also an important global health disparity. Thousands of air pollution health effects studies have been conducted in Europe and North America, rather than in urban areas that have some of the highest measured air pollution levels in world, including urban areas in sub-Saharan Africa. In this paper, we provide a systematic and narrative review of the literature on ambient air pollution epidemiological studies that have been conducted in the region to date. Our review of the literature focuses on epidemiologic studies that measure air pollutants and relate air pollution measurements with various health outcomes. We highlight the gaps in ambient air pollution epidemiological studies conducted in different sub-regions of sub-Saharan Africa and provide methodological recommendations for future environmental epidemiology studies addressing ambient air pollution in the region.

Suggested Citation

  • Eric Coker & Samuel Kizito, 2018. "A Narrative Review on the Human Health Effects of Ambient Air Pollution in Sub-Saharan Africa: An Urgent Need for Health Effects Studies," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 15(3), pages 1-15, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:15:y:2018:i:3:p:427-:d:134161
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/15/3/427/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/15/3/427/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Patrick Opiyo Owili & Wei-Hung Lien & Miriam Adoyo Muga & Tang-Huang Lin, 2017. "The Associations between Types of Ambient PM 2.5 and Under-Five and Maternal Mortality in Africa," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 14(4), pages 1-20, March.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Xiaoping Liu & Zhen Peng & Xianghua Liu & Rui Zhou, 2019. "Dispersion Characteristics of Hazardous Gas and Exposure Risk Assessment in a Multiroom Building Environment," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 17(1), pages 1-18, December.
    2. Egide Kalisa & Stephen Archer & Edward Nagato & Elias Bizuru & Kevin Lee & Ning Tang & Stephen Pointing & Kazuichi Hayakawa & Donnabella Lacap-Bugler, 2019. "Chemical and Biological Components of Urban Aerosols in Africa: Current Status and Knowledge Gaps," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 16(6), pages 1-21, March.
    3. Temitope Christina Adebayo-Ojo & Janine Wichmann & Oluwaseyi Olalekan Arowosegbe & Nicole Probst-Hensch & Christian Schindler & Nino Künzli, 2022. "Short-Term Joint Effects of PM 10 , NO 2 and SO 2 on Cardio-Respiratory Disease Hospital Admissions in Cape Town, South Africa," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(1), pages 1-19, January.
    4. Apolline Saucy & Martin Röösli & Nino Künzli & Ming-Yi Tsai & Chloé Sieber & Toyib Olaniyan & Roslynn Baatjies & Mohamed Jeebhay & Mark Davey & Benjamin Flückiger & Rajen N. Naidoo & Mohammed Aqiel Da, 2018. "Land Use Regression Modelling of Outdoor NO 2 and PM 2.5 Concentrations in Three Low Income Areas in the Western Cape Province, South Africa," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 15(7), pages 1-14, July.
    5. Frans Everson & Patrick De Boever & Tim S. Nawrot & Nandu Goswami & Mashudu Mthethwa & Ingrid Webster & Dries S. Martens & Nyiko Mashele & Sana Charania & Festus Kamau & Hans Strijdom, 2019. "Personal NO 2 and Volatile Organic Compounds Exposure Levels are Associated with Markers of Cardiovascular Risk in Women in the Cape Town Region of South Africa," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 16(13), pages 1-18, June.
    6. Tiekwe Joseph Eloge & Ongbayokolak Nadine & Dabou Solange & Phélix Bruno Telefo & Isabella Annesi-Maesano, 2021. "Clinical Manifestations and Changes of Haematological Markers among Active People Living in Polluted City: The Case of Douala, Cameroon," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 18(2), pages 1-14, January.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Wei-Hung Lien & Patrick Opiyo Owili & Miriam Adoyo Muga & Tang-Huang Lin, 2019. "Ambient Particulate Matter Exposure and Under-Five and Maternal Deaths in Asia," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 16(20), pages 1-15, October.
    2. Silver Onyango & Beth Parks & Simon Anguma & Qingyu Meng, 2019. "Spatio-Temporal Variation in the Concentration of Inhalable Particulate Matter (PM 10 ) in Uganda," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 16(10), pages 1-12, May.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:15:y:2018:i:3:p:427-:d:134161. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.