> The results show strong correlations, but research that would prove a causal link is difficult because ethical experiments cannot deliberately expose people to harm.
This is kind of my hobby horse: you don't need to subject people to harm to test causuality. You can do the opposite: Remove harm and see what happens. Maybe give people free HVAC upgrades to filter more particles.
They kind of already did that experiment in southern California for schools, they just need to run the numbers before and after filters installed adjusted for regular pollution/suicide rates https://www.scpr.org/news/2018/02/05/80413/at-schools-near-f...
It's a lot harder to test without administering the subject in question because there are far more variables to control than (mostly) just A/B. HVAC may confound the study by removing the actual responsible substances, for example, if "air pollution" is not solely the cause.
Which they've already done, many times. Here's one study where they either gave real or fake air purifiers to people in Shanghai and measured cardiopulmonary benefits of intervention: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26022815
> Maybe give people free HVAC upgrades to filter more particles.
HVAC and indoor air quality (IAQ) is a fascinating topic and it takes good design to get it right. In most HVAC systems you can't just stick a higher MERV filter in and expect good results because they are designed for specific amounts of air flow. Thicker filters cause more air resistance which reduces air flow and fan efficiency which means less comfort and greater energy use.
Often a better strategy in a retrofit is to increase air sealing (a good energy recommendation anyway) and install an E/HRV to exchange indoor for outdoor air with a good filter in it. PM2.5 comes from outside so this should take care of it.
>Maybe give people free HVAC upgrades to filter more particles.
Or just reduce pollution in the first place! AFAIK, manufacturing and running HVAC would add more pollution and cost more than switching (for instance) from internal combustion engines to electric vehicles. Or even better, cycling within cities. etc.
That would also remove other things from the air, which ruins the experiment. The only way to measure if a particular type of pollution is responsible is to only filter that one out, which is basically impossible, or to increase the amount of that one, which is unethical because it's potentially harmful.
I live in Northern India which has heavy air pollution. I recently bought an air purifier. Just the difference in the quality of sleep is amazing. And it is not a placebo effect. The filters are already visibly grimy. The PM 2.5 consistently now is around mid 20s down from around 180-190.
I would recommend it to all in North India who can afford it, esp households with small children.
Are you sure? We had one of the bigger Blue Airs (605) in Beijing and I didn’t like using it at all. When it was a 150-200 day, I would just run it before sleep with the windows closed. On worse days, we ran it all night, but it was loud and made the air smell like ozone, giving me a headache. I’m so glad I live in the Seattle area now and can open the window at night.
I'd bet than investing in cleaner vehicles (ICE > EV) and energy source (call > renewable/nuclear) would have much greater health and climate benefits and for much higher ROI.
This is way beyond air, this is water we drink, the chemicals in processed food, the pesticides in the produce. The compounds in furniture, paints, stains, carpeting, general building materials including insulation, plastic plumbing,HVAC components, insistence on living in un-ventilated, year around closed windows spaces.
I'm pretty confident that depression is not a result of air pollution, but rather that both air pollution and depression are results of industrialization. The problem is not chemical. The problem is how we live.
How would you know this without any reliable data regarding pre-industrialization depression levels? Maybe depressed people congregate around urban areas, seeking fulfilment or acceptance, or any other explanation.
What conclusions can we make about the fact that Japan (an industrialized country) has a longer life span the US (also an industrialized country)?
There is more than one variable in play. We can optimize wealth AND health.
(An aside: Your argument is a form of learned helplessness. I expect more from you. I am certain that in matters of business and your families well-being you are not so reductionist.)
Nice idea, unscientific though, since we have very good evidence that pollution crosses the blood brain barrier and damages cells, increasing dementia and mental health risk and poisoning cells in the brain, lung, and other systems.
Hypothetical Theories are nice, but not when actual evidence contradicts them. Do you have any actual evidence for your comment?
No doubt pollution will make you sick, but I'm inclined to think that depression has a lot to do with just living in an over-crowded, unattractive, big industrial city environment, having little contact with the natural world.
Why imagine what is true when you can take a second and find out what is true? The truth is external to you, look for it.
I don't want to be a jerk, but you have generated a hypothesis(great), why not test it against the facts available to you? Maybe you owe it to yourself.
Let me know if you have better data. (I am aware that Indian Reservation tilt the scales big time toward rural areas, but do not think that removing them as outliers changes the balance)
Our brains spent millions of years evolving in nature, makes sense that cramming into cities with unnatural lights and disrupting biological rhythm would make them go haywire
There are many factors at work here but I am sure being forced to stay indoor is depressive as hell. The city where I live has been in constant smog with AQI in the range of 200~300* and every outdoor activities are stopped, I can't even talk a walk around the nearby lakes to relieve my stress.
* the air is terrible already and the government is going to build more coal plants, powered by the 'cleanest coal' approved by the POTUS, sigh. Instead of one nuclear power plant now we have four coal plants instead, great.
Not sure how to reconcile this with the fact that suicide rates in rural areas of the US far exceed suicide rates in urban areas. Do the availability of guns in rural areas really offset this effect that much?
In the UK there was a study on social isolation comparing rural and urban people to evaluate the assumption that people in "isolated" rural areas are lonely. It found the reverse - that people in urban areas are more socially isolated.
"The report briefly mentions the ‘rurality factor’ as presenting greater barriers to connection, with rural areas having fewer and more expensive support services such as transport links. However, it goes on to suggest that ‘rural communities were felt to be less closed off than their urban counterparts’, with rural participants more likely to ask how people are, or stop for chats."
There are multiple factors that lead to suicide. This study shows air pollution is one, but there are others that lead to an elevated suicide rate in rural areas of the US.
In NYC the overall pm 2.5 is really low, usually in the teens, so unless you live under a highway with your windows open its likely too little to affect suicide rates. There are probably other air pollutants in NYC but that could be true of rural areas working in agriculture/heavy industry as well. I imagine many US big cities follow this pattern except for a few unlucky places.
Something that isn't immediately clear to me is whether they accounted for the causes of air pollution.
If not this is like observing that there are a lot of loud bangs in warzones and concluding loud noises kill people, even though they are at best just a side effect of the actual causes.
Way back in the 1920s, my great-great grandfather killed himself. The obituary paralleled the family story of his life: he'd been a drifter of sorts his whole life, always looking for some way out of the life of a dirt-poor, subsistence farmer. He was the first member of the family to leave the Amish / Mennonite colonies of the east and come west. When he died, he was far from home in the middle of nowhere, not a penny to his name.
Last night around the dinner table we were discussing an article from The Week about video game addiction. It described young men a lot like my great-great grandfather, with just the moment in history changed. It seems fairly straightforward that the root causes are:
-- Limited economic opportunities / safety net.
-- Lack (for whatever reason) of social ties and support. A lack of an outlet for emotional intimacy.
Are chemicals, including in our air, at play? Sure, possibly. But, it seems clear that in any case you hear about a suicide the story is basically the same - someone simply did not see a future for themselves. We have not come fully to grips with a post-industrial / post-agrarian economy here in the US, leaving many men in particular without much purpose.
The rural / urban divide is mentioned in this thread - living here in rural America (hi y'all!) is a microcosm of the rest of the country - we have the same problems as cities, just on a different but compressed scale. You see both the happiest and most miserable people up close. If you have the financial means to live away from the city, then you can be the big fish in the small pond, IE: both the financial and social I mentioned above. On the other hand, if you are living paycheck to paycheck, surrounded by a limited social network, etc, is it really that surprising it leads to depression? That's the same regardless of your physical location.
This article is a dumpster fire, read to actual journal article - DOI: 10.1289/EHP4595
"DISCUSSION: Our findings support the hypothesis of an association between long-term PM2:5 exposure and depression, as well as supporting hypotheses of possible associations between long-term PM2:5 exposure and anxiety and between short-term PM10 exposure and suicide. The limited literature
and methodological challenges in this field, including heterogeneous outcome definitions, exposure assessment, and residual confounding, suggest further high-quality studies are warranted to investigate potentially causal associations between air pollution and poor mental health."
Don't really get the point, not really sure the journal is P hacking with PM10 being suicide and PM2.5 being depression but PM2.5/10 gives you cancer's which is depressing, why wouldn't you clean your air?
Oh wow, this totally. My wife had a rough time in Beijing during long stretches of bad air, and I knew other people whose moods would visibly change during those times.
The suicide aspect I’m not sure of, but many people I knew had the option of leaving and did.
plug: if you're interested in air quality issues, we're hiring at Aclima. ping me at igor at aclima.io. we're deploying a distributed sensor grid to get actionable air-quality intelligence around the world, which we believe can motivate regulators to act, and motivate citizens to bug their regulators.
we're looking for folks interested in:
* data engineering
* firmware and IoT platforms
* full-stack and internal tooling
* data scientists and other kinds of scientists interested in data, air quality, and atmospheric/environmental modeling
I can't find the link to the actual study. What I'd like to know is whether there was any research into the actual causal relationships (such as the other study that was linked with pollution particles found in brains), or if it was just statistical correlation between places with high pollution and places with high levels of depression and suicide. If the latter, it could well be a spurious correlation (e.g. pollution happens in big cities, people in big cities tend to have more stressful jobs, stressful jobs cause burnout and depression...)
Not unsurprising, though obvious caveat about correlation and causation. I wouldn't be surprised if pollution is correlated with other things like low quality of life, poverty, etc. All of these probably interact to create an environment that leads to poor mental health.
I'm all for cutting all pollution but is this just not a long shot to try link the two and get more results faster. linking it to more health issues and deaths
Surely not because industry-based jobs let people depressed and surely not because places with industries have been polluting air more than other places. Sure....
[+] [-] im3w1l|6 years ago|reply
This is kind of my hobby horse: you don't need to subject people to harm to test causuality. You can do the opposite: Remove harm and see what happens. Maybe give people free HVAC upgrades to filter more particles.
[+] [-] stevenwoo|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] homulilly|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] allovernow|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] icandoit|6 years ago|reply
https://ehp.niehs.nih.gov/doi/10.1289/ehp.1408795
Personally, I'm down with harm reduction even if it doesn't teach us anything. As a goal it seems pretty good on its own.
[+] [-] sooheon|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] thinkcontext|6 years ago|reply
HVAC and indoor air quality (IAQ) is a fascinating topic and it takes good design to get it right. In most HVAC systems you can't just stick a higher MERV filter in and expect good results because they are designed for specific amounts of air flow. Thicker filters cause more air resistance which reduces air flow and fan efficiency which means less comfort and greater energy use.
Often a better strategy in a retrofit is to increase air sealing (a good energy recommendation anyway) and install an E/HRV to exchange indoor for outdoor air with a good filter in it. PM2.5 comes from outside so this should take care of it.
https://www.energyvanguard.com/blog/unintended-consequences-...
https://www.energyvanguard.com/blog/7-reasons-your-filter-is...
[+] [-] n4r9|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rcMgD2BwE72F|6 years ago|reply
Or just reduce pollution in the first place! AFAIK, manufacturing and running HVAC would add more pollution and cost more than switching (for instance) from internal combustion engines to electric vehicles. Or even better, cycling within cities. etc.
[+] [-] AstralStorm|6 years ago|reply
Plus unfiltered air is elsewhere, as a confounder.
[+] [-] onion2k|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sn41|6 years ago|reply
I would recommend it to all in North India who can afford it, esp households with small children.
[+] [-] saagarjha|6 years ago|reply
How do you know?
[+] [-] seanmcdirmid|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rcMgD2BwE72F|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pointillistic|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] arpa|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|6 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] aalleavitch|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] throwawaylolx|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] icandoit|6 years ago|reply
There is more than one variable in play. We can optimize wealth AND health.
(An aside: Your argument is a form of learned helplessness. I expect more from you. I am certain that in matters of business and your families well-being you are not so reductionist.)
What kinds of solutions would you like to see?
[+] [-] sooheon|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Dumblydorr|6 years ago|reply
Hypothetical Theories are nice, but not when actual evidence contradicts them. Do you have any actual evidence for your comment?
[+] [-] Bantros|6 years ago|reply
Joking aside, I tend to agree
[+] [-] drderidder|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] icandoit|6 years ago|reply
https://www.cdc.gov/ruralhealth/Suicide.html
Why imagine what is true when you can take a second and find out what is true? The truth is external to you, look for it. I don't want to be a jerk, but you have generated a hypothesis(great), why not test it against the facts available to you? Maybe you owe it to yourself.
According to this, it is also true of Germany:
https://ij-healthgeographics.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1...
Let me know if you have better data. (I am aware that Indian Reservation tilt the scales big time toward rural areas, but do not think that removing them as outliers changes the balance)
[+] [-] bilekas|6 years ago|reply
The same could be said for : 'Working night shifts long term is linked to depression and suicide'
Now, while you can reduce global warming and air polution, its different to try and say we need to all work only during the day.
[+] [-] squish78|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] alwaysanagenda|6 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] coconut_crab|6 years ago|reply
* the air is terrible already and the government is going to build more coal plants, powered by the 'cleanest coal' approved by the POTUS, sigh. Instead of one nuclear power plant now we have four coal plants instead, great.
[+] [-] yalok|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] zby|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Rowern|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tstrimple|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] chippy|6 years ago|reply
https://www.co-operative.coop/campaigning/loneliness
"The report briefly mentions the ‘rurality factor’ as presenting greater barriers to connection, with rural areas having fewer and more expensive support services such as transport links. However, it goes on to suggest that ‘rural communities were felt to be less closed off than their urban counterparts’, with rural participants more likely to ask how people are, or stop for chats."
[+] [-] taneq|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sitharus|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] porknubbins|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] chmod775|6 years ago|reply
If not this is like observing that there are a lot of loud bangs in warzones and concluding loud noises kill people, even though they are at best just a side effect of the actual causes.
[+] [-] poulsbohemian|6 years ago|reply
Last night around the dinner table we were discussing an article from The Week about video game addiction. It described young men a lot like my great-great grandfather, with just the moment in history changed. It seems fairly straightforward that the root causes are:
-- Limited economic opportunities / safety net. -- Lack (for whatever reason) of social ties and support. A lack of an outlet for emotional intimacy.
Are chemicals, including in our air, at play? Sure, possibly. But, it seems clear that in any case you hear about a suicide the story is basically the same - someone simply did not see a future for themselves. We have not come fully to grips with a post-industrial / post-agrarian economy here in the US, leaving many men in particular without much purpose.
The rural / urban divide is mentioned in this thread - living here in rural America (hi y'all!) is a microcosm of the rest of the country - we have the same problems as cities, just on a different but compressed scale. You see both the happiest and most miserable people up close. If you have the financial means to live away from the city, then you can be the big fish in the small pond, IE: both the financial and social I mentioned above. On the other hand, if you are living paycheck to paycheck, surrounded by a limited social network, etc, is it really that surprising it leads to depression? That's the same regardless of your physical location.
[+] [-] grandinj|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] aaron695|6 years ago|reply
"DISCUSSION: Our findings support the hypothesis of an association between long-term PM2:5 exposure and depression, as well as supporting hypotheses of possible associations between long-term PM2:5 exposure and anxiety and between short-term PM10 exposure and suicide. The limited literature and methodological challenges in this field, including heterogeneous outcome definitions, exposure assessment, and residual confounding, suggest further high-quality studies are warranted to investigate potentially causal associations between air pollution and poor mental health."
Don't really get the point, not really sure the journal is P hacking with PM10 being suicide and PM2.5 being depression but PM2.5/10 gives you cancer's which is depressing, why wouldn't you clean your air?
[+] [-] seanmcdirmid|6 years ago|reply
The suicide aspect I’m not sure of, but many people I knew had the option of leaving and did.
[+] [-] igor47|6 years ago|reply
we're looking for folks interested in: * data engineering * firmware and IoT platforms * full-stack and internal tooling * data scientists and other kinds of scientists interested in data, air quality, and atmospheric/environmental modeling
[+] [-] hyfgfh|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sgspace|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] stakhanov|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pintable|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] adam0c|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] motbus4|6 years ago|reply