Integrated urban-rural frameworks for air pollution and health-related research in India: the way forward.

摘要

Environmental and occupational risk factors contribute to nearly 40% of the national burden of disease in India [World Health Organization (WHO) 2002], with air pollution ranking among the leading risk factors. Despite the ubiquity of extreme exposure situations that may have substantial contributions from outdoor, indoor, and occupational microenvironments, health effects research in India has been sparse and compartmentalized, resulting in a limited pool of integrated evidence from local studies. Consequendy, policy and regulatory standards have been driven largely by global evidence. Here, we present a rationale for developing integrated health research frameworks that jointly address outdoor and indoor exposures in rural and urban settings to generate representative impact data and inform development and regulatory efforts in India.