Population Exposure to Particulate Matter and COVID-19: An Ecological Study for Health Promotion

Abstract

Finding evidence of the association between ambient pollution and severe coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) infections is complicated and vague. Before widespread vaccination, this brief study investigated the COVID-19 dissemination and its relationship with the particulate matter. We used the reported cases and deaths per capita and PM2.5 (particulate matter ≤ 2.5 μm) in 245 cities in the United Kingdom (UK) and United State of America (USA) based on publicly available secondary data. We performed correlation and regression analyses of variables to explore the association between COVID-19 and PM2.5. The analysis revealed that PM2.5 positively correlated with cases (Unstandardized Coefficient (b):150.04, P=0.006) and deaths per capita (b: 3.87, P=0.005)) in total cities, after adjusting median age and population density. The findings showed that the spread of the disease may be affected by the PM2.5 concentration.