Original Research

Survey of knowledge and attitude of people about air pollution in Tehran, Iran

Abstract

Introduction: The importance of air quality and paying attention to what we breathe have been valuable always. So that air pollution is one of the key environmental issues in urban communities. Several studies show that the potential effects of air pollution on human health include increased mortality and changes in cardiovascular and respiratory functions.
Materials and methods: The population of this study was people in 22 districts of Tehran megacity. The questionnaires were placed at the municipality centers of 22 districts and randomly completed by people who came to the center. Questions included the importance of air pollution, the comparison of air quality with last year, the main sources of air pollution, the problems created by air pollution, the quality of informing system, as well as questions about their satisfaction about government’s actions on air pollution control plans. Data analysis was performed using SPSS 24.
Results: 84.14 % of the participants stated that air pollution is important to them and has a negative influence on their lives. Also, most of them were not satisfied with the measures taken and expected that actions would be better to reduce air pollution. 91.10 % of the participants considered cars as the main causes of air pollution. Also, 68.22 % of people believed that air pollution had a significant negative impact on their quality of life.
Conclusion: Most people are willing to live at a higher cost but a less polluted environment, while more of them are not well aware of their role in reducing air pollution. Moreover further education should be provided on the role of people in reducing air pollution. Additionally, the government must deal with air pollutants and take serious measures.

1. Yorifuji T, Kashima S, Doi H. Acute exposure to fine and coarse particulate matter and infant mortality in Tokyo, Japan (2002-2013). Science of the total environment. 2016;551-552:66-72.
2. Hindmarsh JT. Arsenic, its clinical and environmental significance. The journal of trace elements in experimental medicine. The official publication of the international society for trace elements in humans. 2000;13(1):165-72.
3. Lippmann M. Environmental toxicants: human exposures and their health effects: John Wiley & Sons; 2000.
4. Kunzli N, Kaiser R, Medina S, Studnicka M, Chanel O, Filliger P, et al. Public-health impact of outdoor and traffic-related air pollution: a European assessment. The Lancet. 2000;356 (9232):795-801.
5. Nadafi K, Nabizadeh R, Nazm Ara S, Nourmoradi H, Mohammadi Moghadam F. Studying the TSP and PM10 measurements and description of the air quality according to the air quality index (AQI) in the central parts of Tehran city in 2005-2006. Health system research. 2010;6(4):657-65.
6. Dockery DW Pope CA. Acute respiratory effects of particulate air pollution. Annual Review of public health. 1994;15(1):107-32.
7. Halek F, Kavouci A, Montehaie H. Role of motor-vehicles and trend of air borne particulate in the great Tehran area, Iran. International journal of environmental health research. 2004;14(4):307-13.
8. Ciocco A, Thompson DJ. A follow-up of Donora ten years after: methodology and findings. American journal of public health and the nations health. 1961;51(2):155-64.
9. Nemery B, Hoet PH, Nemmar A. The meuse valley fog of 1930: an air pollution disaster. The lancet. 2001;357(9257):704-8.
10. Brunekreef B, Holgate ST. Air pollution and health. The lancet. 2002;360(9341):1233-42.
11. Fattore E, Paiano V, Borgini A, Tittarelli A, Bertoldi M, Crosignani P, et al. Human health risk in relation to air quality in two municipalities in an industrialized area of Northern Italy. environmental research. 2011;111(8):1321-7.
12. Sudarmadi S Ss, Kawada T, Netti H, Soemantri S, Tugaswati AT. A survey of perception, knowledge, awareness and attitude in regard to environmental problems in a sample of two different social groups in Jakarta, Indonesia. Environment, development and sustainability. 2001.
13. Karen Bickerstaff GW. Public understandings of air pollution: the localization of environmental risk. Global environmental change. 2001.
14. Skamp K, Boyes E, Stanisstreet M. Students' ideas and attitudes about air quality. Research in science education. 2004;34(3):313-42.
15. Seyed mehdi S, Yazdanparast T, Azin S, Salehpour S, Masjedi M. Tehran students attitude regarding air pollution. Nafas. 2010;1(2):25-33.
16. Samakovlis E, Huhtala A, Bellander T, Svartengren M. Valuing health effects of air pollution - Focus on concentration-response functions. Journal of urban economic. 2005;58(2):230-49.
17. Faul F, Erdfelder E, Lang A-G, Buchner A. G* Power 3: A flexible statistical power analysis program for the social, behavioral, and biomedical sciences. Behavior research methods. 2007;39(2):175-91.
18. Mohamdzadeh Asl N, Emamverdi, Afraz S. Ranking of urban welfare indicators in different regions of Tehran (Persian). Journal of research and urban planning. 2010;1(1):85-106.
19. Mage D, Ozolins G, Peterson P, Webster A, Orthofer R, Vandeweerd V, et al. Urban air pollution in megacities of the world. Atmospheric environment. 1996;30(5):681-6.
20. Forsberg B, Stjernberg N, Wall S. People can detect poor air quality well below guideline concentrations: a prevalence study of annoyance reactions and air pollution from traffic. Occupational and environmental medicine. 1997;54(1):44.
21. Hastaie P. Air pollution countermeasures in Tehran. Teheran; 2001.
22. Kampa M, Castanas E. Human health effects of air pollution. Environmental pollution. 2008;151(2):362-7.
23. Samet J, Krewski D. Health effects associated with exposure to ambient air pollution. Journal of toxicology and environmental health, Part A. 2007;70(3-4):227-42.
24. Samet JM, Dominici F, Curriero FC, Coursac I, Zeger SL. Fine particulate air pollution and mortality in 20 US cities, 1987–1994. New England journal of medicine. 2000;343(24):1742-9.
25. Bush J, Moffatt S, Dunn CE. Keeping the public informed? Public negotiation of air quality information. Public understanding of science. 2001;10(2):213-29.
Files
IssueVol 3 No 4 (2018): Autumn 2018 QRcode
SectionOriginal Research
DOI https://doi.org/10.18502/japh.v3i4.408
Keywords
Air pollution; Knowledge; Attitude; Strategies; Training
Rights and permissions
Creative Commons License This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.
How to Cite
1.
Ahmad Fazeli A, Hesami Z, Ghanbari A, Safari M, Hassanvand MS. Survey of knowledge and attitude of people about air pollution in Tehran, Iran. JAPH. 2018;3(4):225-234.