Are environmental pollution and biodiversity levels associated to the spread and mortality of COVID-19? A four-month global analysis.
Por:
Fernández D, Giné-Vázquez I, Liu I, Yucel R, Nai Ruscone M, Morena M, García VG, Haro JM, Pan W and Tyrovolas S
Publicada:
15 feb 2021
Ahead of Print:
21 dic 2020
Resumen:
On March 12th, 2020, the WHO declared COVID-19 as a pandemic. The collective impact of environmental and ecosystem factors, as well as biodiversity, on the spread of COVID-19 and its mortality evolution remain empirically unknown, particularly in regions with a wide ecosystem range. The aim of our study is to assess how those factors impact on the COVID-19 spread and mortality by country. This study compiled a global database merging WHO daily case reports with other publicly available measures from January 21st to May 18th, 2020. We applied spatio-temporal models to identify the influence of biodiversity, temperature, and precipitation and fitted generalized linear mixed models to identify the effects of environmental variables. Additionally, we used count time series to characterize the association between COVID-19 spread and air quality factors. All analyses were adjusted by social demographic, country-income level, and government policy intervention confounders, among 160 countries, globally. Our results reveal a statistically meaningful association between COVID-19 infection and several factors of interest at country and city levels such as the national biodiversity index, air quality, and pollutants elements (PM(10,) PM(2.5)(,) and O(3)). Particularly, there is a significant relationship of loss of biodiversity, high level of air pollutants, and diminished air quality with COVID-19 infection spread and mortality. Our findings provide an empirical foundation for future studies on the relationship between air quality variables, a country's biodiversity, and COVID-19 transmission and mortality. The relationships measured in this study can be valuable when governments plan environmental and health policies, as alternative strategy to respond to new COVID-19 outbreaks and prevent future crises.
Filiaciones:
Fernández D:
Serra Húnter Fellow, Department of Statistics and Operations Research, Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya-BarcelonaTech, 08028, Spain
Giné-Vázquez I:
Instituto de Salud Carlos III, Centro de Investigación Biomédica en Red de Salud Mental, CIBERSAM, Monforte de Lemos 3-5, Pabellón 11, 28029, Madrid, Spain, Barcelona, Spain
Parc Sanitari Sant Joan de Déu, Universitat de Barcelona, Fundació Sant Joan de Déu, Dr Antoni Pujades, 42, 08830, Sant Boi de Llobregat, Barcelona, Spain
Liu I:
School of Mathematics and Statistics, Victoria University of Wellington, Wellington, 6012, New Zealand
Yucel R:
Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, College of Public Health, Temple University, Philadelphia, PA, 19122, USA
Nai Ruscone M:
Department of Mathematics - DIMA, University of Genova, 16146, Genova, Italy
Morena M:
Department of Nutrition and Dietetics, School of Health Sciences and Education, Harokopio University, Athens, Greece
García VG:
Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya-BarcelonaTech, EEBE, A6.5, 08019, Barcelona, Spain
Fundació Eurecat, Plaça de la Ciència, 2, 08243, Manresa, Barcelona, Spain
Haro JM:
Instituto de Salud Carlos III, Centro de Investigación Biomédica en Red de Salud Mental, CIBERSAM, Monforte de Lemos 3-5, Pabellón 11, 28029, Madrid, Spain, Barcelona, Spain
Parc Sanitari Sant Joan de Déu, Universitat de Barcelona, Fundació Sant Joan de Déu, Dr Antoni Pujades, 42, 08830, Sant Boi de Llobregat, Barcelona, Spain
King Saud University, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia
Pan W:
Global Health Institute, Duke University, Durham, NC, 27708, USA
Nicholas School of the Environment, Duke University, Durham, NC, 27708, USA
Tyrovolas S:
Instituto de Salud Carlos III, Centro de Investigación Biomédica en Red de Salud Mental, CIBERSAM, Monforte de Lemos 3-5, Pabellón 11, 28029, Madrid, Spain, Barcelona, Spain
Parc Sanitari Sant Joan de Déu, Universitat de Barcelona, Fundació Sant Joan de Déu, Dr Antoni Pujades, 42, 08830, Sant Boi de Llobregat, Barcelona, Spain
School of Nursing, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hong Kong SAR, China
Green Published, Bronze
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