ZusammenfassungEnvironmental exposures substantially impact the earth’s ecosystems as well as human health. In a rapidly changing climate due to human activities, there is an escalating call for more comprehensive, in-depth, and novel interdisciplinary research. To date, our understanding of how human health is affected by air pollution under the challenges of climate change and evolving emissions from the transport sector remains limited. In this study, we aim to gain a deep scientific comprehension of how ambient air pollution is expected to evolve and how it will impact cardiovascular health, in the context of a shifting climate, comprising the combined effects of ambient air pollution and air temperature. To achieve this, highly resolved global-regional chemistry-climate model (GRCM) simulations will be carried out for Germany for present-day as well as for future climate conditions for the years 2030 and 2050. The occurrence of self-reported, physician-diagnosed cardiovascular diseases (CVD) such as myocardial infarction, stroke and hypertension, measurements of blood pressure as well as cardio-metabolic biomarkers such as cholesterol and triglycerides from the German National Cohort (NAKO) in association with the respective exposure data will be analyzed by using confounder-adjusted logistic or robust Poisson regression models. The important adjustment for confounders within the statistical analysis will be performed for known risk factors such as age, sex, body mass index, socio-economic status, and smoking. In order to check the robustness of the health effects, various sensitivity analyses will be conducted. For example, we will assess the effects of variations in the confounder adjustment or check for deviations of the exposure-response functions from linearity. Effect-modification analyses will help identify especially susceptible subgroups. The derived present-day exposure-response functions will be applied to project air pollution and air temperature-related CVD effects to the different GRCM simulations for combinations of climate and emissions, also accounting for future population adaptation as well as changes in CVD rate. The project findings will be deliberated with local authorities, providing essential insights into the necessity for mitigation efforts to minimize the adverse effects of ambient air pollution on public health. This work will be conducted within the framework of IMPAC²T (Impacts of transport emissions on air pollution, human health and vegetation under climate change and possible mitigation options) project from the BMBF (Federal Ministry of Education and Research) funding measure “Junior Groups on Global Change: Climate, Environment and Health”.

Schlüsselwörter air-pollution blood-pressure cardiometabolic-biomarkers cardiovascular-diseases climate-change climate-scenarios hypertension mitigation-options myocardial-infarction stroke transport-emissions

EinrichtungenHelmholtz Zentrum München, DLR e.V., Leibniz Institute for Prevention Research and Epidemiology - BIPS, Helmholtz Zentrum München - Deutsches Forschungszentrum für Gesundheit und Umwelt