Contemporary threats and air pollution

It is now well understood that air pollution produces significant adverse health effects in the general public and over the past 60 years, there have been on-going efforts to reduce the emitted pollutants and their resulting health effects. There are now shifting patterns of industrialization with many heavily polluting industries moving from developed countries with increasingly stringent air quality standards to the developing world. However, even in decreasing concentrations of pollutants, health effects remain important possibly as a result of changes in the nature of the pollutants as new chemicals are produced and as other causes of mortality and morbidity are reduced. In addition, there is now the potential for deliberate introduction of toxic air pollutants by local armed conflicts and terrorists. Thus, there are new challenges to understand the role of the atmospheric environment on public health in this time of changing economic and demographic conditions overlaid with the willingness to indirectly attack governments and other established entities through direct attacks on the general public.