Environmental Factors in Cancer: Focus on Air Pollution

摘要

Air pollution poses a small but non-negligible cancer risk to our nation. The nation's ability to limit this risk is largely within its control, but it will require a more coordinated and proactive approach to research and regulation. There is a small contribution to our cancer risk that originates from outside our borders. Because prevailing winds at our latitudes tend to be out of the west, most of our imported pollution is from China and East Asia. Some observations and model calculations suggest that pollution from East Asia may be responsible for as much as 6% of the PM2.5 in the western United States. Imported dust may contribute as much as 25%. However, it is important to bear in mind that just as imported pollution from East Asia may affect our air quality, so exported pollution from the United States can affect European air quality. International agreements and treaties hold out the best hope of minimizing the cross-boundary impacts.