Sand and dust storms: a growing global health threat calls for international health studies to support policy action

Sand and dust storms increasingly threaten global environmental and public health. To date, 150 countries are directly affected, with more than 100 classified as non-dust source regions. With climate change, these storms are expected to become more frequent and severe. Despite international awareness and initiatives, such as those led by the UN, crucial knowledge gaps continue to hinder effective, evidence-based public responses to sand and dust storms. In this Viewpoint, we review existing gaps in health research and highlight four key research priorities: the comprehensive health effects of sand and dust storms, including short-term and long-term exposures, diseases, regions, and health outcomes; the key particle sizes and toxic components of particles during sand and dust storms; the design of multicentre studies accounting for region-specific exposure patterns; and research on health outcomes attributable to particulate matter mixtures dominated by windblown dust versus other sources. We urgently call for international, collaborative, and multidisciplinary health studies considering sand and dust storm exposure characteristics and for the adoption of scientifically robust epidemiological methods in these studies.

This study was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (82425051 and 82241051; TL), the National Key R&D Program of China (2023YFC3708302; QL), the Chinese Academy of Sciences Project for Young Scientists in Basic Research (YSBR-086; QL), and the National Key Laboratory of Intelligent Tracking and Forecasting for Infectious Diseases (2024NITFID407; CZ and 2024NITFID601; TL). The views expressed in the article are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Health Effects Institute, or its sponsors.

Peer reviewed