China is at its most critical stage of outdoor air quality management. In order to prevent further deterioration of air quality and to protect human health, the Chinese government has made a series of attempts to reduce ambient air pollution. Unlike previous literature reviews on the widespread hazards of air pollution on health, this review article firstly summarized the existing evidence of human health benefits from intermittently improved outdoor air quality and intervention in China. Contents of this paper provide concrete and direct clue that improvement in outdoor air quality generates various health benefits in China, and confirm from a new perspective that it is worthwhile for China to shift its development strategy from economic growth to environmental economic sustainability. Greater emphasis on sustainable environment design, consistently strict regulatory enforcement, and specific monitoring actions should be regarded in China to decrease the health risks and to avoid long-term environmental threats.

Ambient fine particulate matter samples were collected during 2009–2013 in Chengdu, a megacity in western China, and the samples were speciated into organic carbon (OC), elemental carbon (EC), char-EC, soot-EC, eight carbon fractions, inorganic elements and water-soluble ions. Char-EC and soot-EC contribute to the better understanding of the sources and properties of EC. The highest levels of most carbon fractions were found in winter and May. The higher OC/EC ratio in winter suggests higher SOC fraction in winter, and higher char-EC/soot-EC ratio in May are the direct consequences of straw burning activities. Source contributions to PM2.5 and carbonaceous aerosols were quantified using the ME2 receptor model. Major contributors to OC in PM2.5 are vehicular exhaust (36.5%), coal combustion & straw burning (35.2%) and SOC (27.0%). The first two categories also contributed 51.4% and 49.3% of char-EC in PM2.5. Vehicular exhaust dominated soot-EC, contributing 63.0% to soot-EC in PM2.5. SOC contributed to high OC levels in winter due to the increase of precursor emissions and stable meteorological conditions. Coal combustion & straw burning show higher contributions to OC, char-EC and soot-EC in winter months and in May, which can be explained, in part, by increased coal consumption in winter and straw burning activities in May. Vehicular exhaust contributions are not strongly associated with monthly nor weekday-weekend patterns, resulting in that soot-EC vary insignificantly by month nor by weekday.

Within the framework of the Spanish monitoring program, this study reports on air concentration of DDTs, HCB, HCHs, NDL-PCBs, DL-PCBs, PCDD/Fs and PBDEs measured during the five-year sampling period 2008–2013. Spanish coastal remote and urban locations were studied using PUF disk passive air samplers which were deployed and collected every three months. Despite the wide range of concentrations measured for most contaminants, a common pattern of relative abundance (median values): NDL-PCBs (36.6 pg/m³) > HCB (24.8 pg/m³) ≈ HCHs (17.9 pg/m³) ≈ DDTs (16.6 pg/m³) > PBDEs (3.65 pg/m³) > DL-PCBs (2.99 pg/m³) >> PCDD/Fs (0.060 pg/m³) was found fairly consistent across most seasons and locations. Nevertheless, important variations in yearly concentrations were measured for different POPs. In general, higher levels of DDTs, HCHs, NDL-PCBs, DL-PCBs and PCDD/Fs were found in urban sites highlighting important differences between remote and urban sampling locations for most target contaminants. Greater concentrations of the banned organochlorine pesticides in urban locations suggested the existence of unexpected pointed sources that need to be further investigated and characterized. The limited dataset collected thus far rendered no clear temporal trends for most study target compounds, which emphasizes the necessity of the Spanish monitoring program future maintenance in time.

A regional investigation in the Youxian prefecture, southern China, was conducted to analyze the impact of environmental factors including soil properties and irrigation in conjunction with the use of fertilizers on the accumulation of Cd in vegetables. The Cd transfer potential from soil to vegetable was provided by the plant uptake factor (PUF), which varied by three orders of magnitude and was described by a Gaussian distribution model. The soil pH, content of soil organic matter (SOM), concentrations of Zn in the soil, pH of irrigation water and nitrogenous fertilizers contributed significantly to the PUF variations. A path model analysis, however, revealed the principal control of the PUF values resulted from the soil pH, soil Zn concentrations and SOM. Transfer functions were developed using the total soil Cd concentrations, soil pH, and SOM. They explained 56% of the variance for all samples irrespective of the vegetable genotypes. The transfer functions predicted the probability of exceeding China food safety standard concentrations for Cd in four major consumable vegetables under different soil conditions. Poor production practices in the study area involved usage of soil with pH values ≤ 5.5, especially for the cultivation of Raphanus sativus L., even with soil Cd concentrations below the China soil quality standard. We found the soil standard Cd concentrations for cultivating vegetables was not strict enough for strongly acidic (pH ≤ 5.5) and SOM-poor (SOM ≤ 10 g kg−1) soils present in southern China. It is thus necessary to address the effect of environmental variables to generate a suitable Cd threshold for cultivated soils.

There is limited information on the BDE-209 relative bioavailability (RBA) of indoor dust and the absorption of BDE-209 after in vitro digestion was seldom studied. In the present study, BDE-209 RBA in 6 household dust samples measured using an in vivo mouse model was compared to BDE-209 bioaccessibility determined using physiologically based extraction test (PBET) and solubility bioaccessibility research consortium method (SBRC) assays. BDE-209 RBA obtained ranged from 45.9 ± 16.1 to 96.0 ± 17.4% and exhibited a significant relationship with PBET gastric phase (r2 = 0.578, p = 0.080), small intestinal phase (r2 = 0.728, p = 0.031) and total BDE-209 bioaccessibility (r2 = 0.728, p = 0.031), which indicated PBET assay can serve as a surrogate to predict BDE-209 RBA to refine human health exposure. In addition, the absorption of BDE-209 by Caco-2 cell line was assessed. With the consideration of the corresponding bioaccessibility and absorption of BDE-209 by Caco-2 cell line, the human daily intake of BDE-209 via dust ingestion for adults and children was much lower than that estimated by total concentration.

Pesticide exposure is hypothesized as one of the risk factors for the development of childhood brain tumors (CBT). This hospital-based case–control study evaluated the association of pyrethroid pesticide exposure with the risk for CBT in a children population in East China. In total, 161 CBT cases and 170 controls were recruited from 2 children's medical centers in Shanghai (Xinhua Hospital and Shanghai Children's Medical Center) between September 2012 and June 2015. The cases and controls were matched for age, sex, and province of residence. Pyrethroid pesticide exposure was evaluated by urinalysis of 3 nonspecific metabolites of pyrethroids (cis-DCCA, trans-DCCA, and 3-PBA) using gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS) detection and by administering a questionnaire. Unconditional logistic regression showed that trans-DCCA, 3-PBA, and total metabolites (sum of the 3 metabolites) were positively associated with the increased risk of CBT. Children in the highest quartile had a nearly 3-fold increased risk of CBT compared with those in the lowest quartile after adjusting for confounding factors (trans-DCCA, odds ratio (OR) = 2.58, 95% confidence interval (CI), 1.38–4.80, p = 0.003; 3-PBA, OR = 3.26, 95% CI, 1.73–6.14, p < 0.0001; total metabolites, OR = 3.60, 95% CI, 1.87–6.93, p < 0.0001). We also found that exposure to both mosquitocide and cockroach killer was related to the increased risk of CBT (mosquitocide, OR = 1.68, 95% CI, 1.06–2.67, p = 0.027; cockroach killer, OR = 1.83, 95% CI, 1.13–2.95, p = 0.013). These findings indicate that exposure to pyrethroid pesticides might be associated with increased risk of CBT. Prospective cohort studies with larger sample sizes are required to confirm this conclusion.

In 2014, as an attempt to address the Zika health crisis by controlling the mosquito population, Brazil took the unprecedented action of applying a chemical larvicide, pyriproxyfen, to drinking water sources. The World Health Organization has established an acceptable daily intake of pyriproxyfen to be 100 μg per kg of body weight per day, but studies have demonstrated that at elevated doses (>5000 mg/kg), there are adverse effects in mice, rats and dogs. To better understand the potential developmental toxicity of pyriproxyfen, we utilized the embryonic zebrafish. Our results demonstrate that the concentration resulting in 50% of animals presenting adverse morphological effects (EC50), including craniofacial defects, was 5.2 μM for daily renewal exposure, and above this concentration, adverse behavioral effects were also observed in animals that followed a static exposure regimen. Thus, zebrafish data suggest that the developmental toxicity of pyriproxyfen may not be limited to insects.

Low birth weight (<2500 g) (LBW), premature birth (<37 weeks of gestation) (PB), and late foetal death (<24 h of life) (LFD) are causes of perinatal morbi-mortality, with short- and long-term social and economic health impacts. This study sought to identify gestational windows of susceptibility during pregnancy and to analyse and quantify the impact of different air pollutants, noise and temperature on the adverse birth outcomes.Time-series study to assess the impact of mean daily PM2.5, NO2 and O3 (μg/m3), mean daily diurnal (Leqd) and nocturnal (Leqn) noise levels (dB(A)), maximum and minimum daily temperatures (°C) on the number of births with LBW, PB or LFD in Madrid across the period 2001–2009. We controlled for linear trend, seasonality and autoregression. Poisson regression models were fitted for quantification of the results. The final models were expressed as relative risk (RR) and population attributable risk (PAR).Leqd was observed to have the following impacts in LBW: at onset of gestation, in the second trimester and in the week of birth itself. NO2 had an impact in the second trimester. In the case of PB, the following: Leqd in the second trimester, Leqn in the week before birth and PM2.5 in the second trimester. In the case of LFD, impacts were observed for both PM2.5 in the third trimester, and minimum temperature. O3 proved significant in the first trimester for LBW and PB, and in the second trimester for LFD.Pollutants concentrations, noise and temperature influenced the weekly average of new-borns with LBW, PB and LFD in Madrid. Special note should be taken of the effect of diurnal noise on LBW across the entire pregnancy. The exposure of pregnant population to the environmental factors analysed should therefore be controlled with a view to reducing perinatal morbi-mortality.

Mercury (Hg) accumulation records spanning the last 16,000 years before present (yr BP, relative to AD 1950) were derived from a peat core collected from Dajiuhu mire, central China. The natural Hg concentration and accumulation rate (free from anthropogenic influence) were 135.5 ± 53.9 ng g−1 and 6.5 ± 4.5 μg m−2 yr−1, respectively. The increase in Hg flux that started from a core depth of 96.5 cm (3358 cal yr BP) is independent of soil erosion and organic matter content. We attribute this to an increase in atmospheric Hg deposition derived from regional anthropogenic activities. Anthropogenic Hg accumulation rates (Hg-ARA) in the pre-industrial period peaked during the Ming and the early Qing dynasties (582–100 cal yr BP), with Hg-ARA of 9.9–24.6 and 10.7–24.4 μg m−2 yr−1, respectively. In the industrial interval (post∼1850 AD), Hg-ARA increased progressively and reached 32.7 μg m−2 yr−1 at the top of the core. Our results indicate the existence of regional atmospheric Hg pollution spanning the past ∼3400 years, and place recent Hg enrichment in central China in a broader historical context.

This study investigated whether the rotavirus infection rate in children is associated with temperature and air pollutants in Hangzhou, China. This study applied a distributed lag non-linear model (DLNM) to assess the effects of daily meteorological data and air pollutants on the rotavirus positive rate among outpatient children. There was a negative correlation between temperature and the rotavirus infection rate. The impact of temperature on the detection rate of rotavirus presented an evident lag effect, the temperature change shows the greatest impact on the detection rate of rotavirus approximate at lag one day, and the maximum relative risk (RR) was approximately 1.3. In 2015, the maximum cumulative RR due to the cumulative effect caused by the temperature drop was 2.5. Particulate matter (PM) 2.5 and PM10 were the primary air pollutants in Hangzhou. The highest RR of rotavirus infection occurred at lag 1–1.5 days after the increase in the concentration of these pollutants, and the RR increased gradually with the increase in concentration. Based on the average concentrations of PM2.5 of 53.9 μg/m3 and PM10 of 80.6 μg/m3 in Hangzhou in 2015, the cumulative RR caused by the cumulative effect was 2.5 and 2.2, respectively. The current study suggests that temperature is an important factor impacting the rotavirus infection rate of children in Hangzhou. Air pollutants significantly increased the risk of rotavirus infection, and dosage, lag and cumulative effects were observed.