Investigating Associations of Air Pollutants and Noise with Physiological Responses in Southern Taiwan

Abstract

Air pollutants are found associated with cardiopulmonary diseases Physiological responses are considered to be associated with air pollutants This study uses the mobile measurement method fixed monitoring stations linear regression model and linear mixed model (LMM) to systematically investigate the association among air pollutants noise and physiological responses adjusted for temperature and relative humidity The mobile measurement of air pollutants noise and physiological responses data were collected in southern Taiwan The measurement of air pollutants and noise was based on the moving averages for 5-minute 15-minute 30-minute 60-minute and 90-minute This study assesses the associations among a series of physiological responses and several air pollutants separately The physiological responses include heart rate variability (HRV) and lung function indicators The results show that the short-term (e g ≦ 90-minute) air pollutants and noise can affect cardiac autonomic function causing the imbalance of autonomic nervous and the negative effects on parasympathetic nerves In addition noise and high frequency noise have very similar effects on physiological responses Various air pollutants have different degrees of adverse effects on physiological responses over different exposure time

Date of Award	2019
Original language	English
Supervisor	Chih-Chieh Wu (Supervisor)