Air Pollution and Chest Disease

¹ Chief, Epidemiologic Investigations, Air Pollution Medical Program, United States Public Health Service, Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, Washington, D. C.

Acute smog disasters have made it clear that air pollution can cause disease and death. The subtle effects of everyday air pollution are, however, less well known, and present a formidable challenge to medical researchers.

Statistical correlations based on morbidity and mortality and laboratory studies, constitute the two main directions taken to determine long-term health effects. Neither approach yields results comparable to those which might be expected from long-term, well-controlled, prospective epidemiologic studies from which all variables except the air breathed would be eliminated.

A large-scale community health study in Nashville, Tennessee, by the Public Health Service represents the first venture in this field. Morbidity and mortality findings will be correlated with information from an elaborate air sampling network, while other environmental and cultural factors are standardized.

But studies much more elaborate than the Nashville study are needed. In the meantime, the need for refined portable pulmonary function instrumentation and for more accurate definition of the disease spectrum under question (asthma—chronic bronchitis—emphysema) are so crucial as to threaten serious delays.