Abstract：
Over six million people die prematurely each year from exposure to air pollution. Current air quality metrics insufficiently monitor exposure to air pollutants. This gap hinders the ability of decisionmakers to address the public health impacts of air pollution. To spur new emissions control policies and ensure implemented solutions realize meaningful gains in environmental health, we develop a framework of public-health-focused air quality indicators that quantifies over 200 countries\' trends in exposure to particulate matter, ozone, nitrogen oxides, sulfur dioxide, carbon monoxide, and volatile organic compounds. We couple population density to ground-level pollutant concentrations to derive population-weighted exposure metrics that quantify the pollutant levels experienced by the average resident in each country. Our analyses demonstrate that most residents in 171 countries experience pollutant levels exceeding international health guidelines. In addition, we find a negative correlation between temporal trends in ozone and nitrogen oxide concentrations, which─when qualitatively interpreted with a simple atmospheric chemistry box model─can help describe the apparent tradeoff between the mitigation of these two pollutants on local scales. These novel indicators and their applications enable regulators to identify their most critical pollutant exposure trends and allow countries to track the performance of their emission control policies over time.
摘要：
每年有超过600万人因暴露于空气污染而过早死亡。当前的空气质量指标不足以监测暴露于空气污染物。这种差距阻碍了决策者解决空气污染对公共卫生影响的能力。促进新的排放控制政策，并确保已实施的解决方案在环境健康方面实现有意义的收益，我们制定了一个以公共卫生为重点的空气质量指标框架，量化了200多个国家的颗粒物暴露趋势，臭氧,氮氧化物,二氧化硫,一氧化碳,和挥发性有机化合物。我们将人口密度与地面污染物浓度相结合，以得出人口加权暴露指标，以量化每个国家平均居民所经历的污染物水平。我们的分析表明，171个国家的大多数居民的污染物水平超过了国际健康指南。此外,我们发现臭氧和氮氧化物浓度的时间趋势之间存在负相关，当用一个简单的大气化学盒模型定性解释时，它可以帮助描述这两种污染物在局部尺度上的缓解之间的明显权衡。这些新颖的指标及其应用使监管机构能够确定其最关键的污染物暴露趋势，并使各国能够随着时间的推移跟踪其排放控制政策的执行情况。
