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Association of Short-Term Exposure to Air Pollution and Heart Rate Variability for a Healthy Cohort in a Highly Polluted City of Delhi
KASHISH JAIN, Gazala Habib, Nisar Ali Baig, Mohammad Yawar, Sandeep Singh, Siddharthan Deepti, Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi
Abstract Number: 641
Working Group: Health-Related Aerosols
Abstract
The adverse effects of air pollution on respiratory and cardiovascular health have been established in a series of major observational studies. In rapidly developing countries like India where the mean pollutant levels are much higher than the health-based air quality guidelines, the risk increases even more. However, the extent of epidemiological cohort studies linking air pollution and health in India is still modest. The current study assessed the response of heart rate variability (HRV) parameters including ST-segment, a proxy to cardiovascular mortality, in a cohort of healthy individuals due to short-term exposure to pollutants like size segregated particulate mass (PM) and number (PN) concentrations and black carbon (BC). The cohort comprised of security guards working at the entrance gate of a college in the highly polluted city of Delhi. A questionnaire was administered for collecting baseline data on any background exposure or covariates including demography, smoking and drinking habits, etc. to establish the healthy status of participants which was a primary inclusion criterion. The real-time exposure to size segregated PM and PN was measured using Optical Particle Sizer along with gravimetric PM2.5 measurements. The BC measurements were made using an aethalometer. ECG holters were used to capture the real-time cardiac response along with activity trackers to adjust for variations in response due to any intensive activity. A linear mixed-effect model was used to examine the relationship between mean pollutant concentrations and HRV indices. Significant changes were observed in the HRV indices with the increase in pollutant concentrations. It indicates that even short-term exposures in a highly polluted environment can cause a significant decline in cardiovascular health for healthy individuals.