China Cancer Villages: Annotated Bibliographies

Cao, Jie, et al. "Association Between Long-Term Exposure to Outdoor Air Pollution and Mortality in China: A Cohort Study." Journal of Hazardous Materials 186.2/3 (2011): 1594-1600. Academic Search Complete. Web. 12 Nov. 2013. Cao states that China’s air pollution is causing an increase in mortality, rates of hospital admissions, exacerbation of chronic respiratory conditions, and decreased lung function. A test was conducted comparing long-term exposure to outdoor air pollution and mortality in a countrywide representative cohort in China. A Random Clustering design picked 158,666 adults from China to participate in this study. There are no adequate monitoring stations in the rural areas of China; hence researchers limited their analysis to participants living in the urban areas. This left 70,947 subjects residing in 31 cities of 16 provinces. A medical history background was recorded for each subject to estimate their prior risk factor. Between 1999 and 2000 researchers were conducting in-depth interviews to obtain information on the history of disease, hospitalizations, and death. If a death had occurs a death certificate was obtained from the police along with all medical records. A total of 8319 subjects died during the follow up, among which 3013 died from cardiovascular disease, 921 from respiratory disease and 624 from lung cancer. “From 1991 to 2000, the annual concentrations declined 5% for TSP and 35% for SO2, but increased 28% for NOx, suggesting that air pollution pattern in Chinese cities had gradually changed from the conventional coal combustion type to the mixed coal combustion/motor vehicle emission type in the 1990s.” I will use Cao’s results as statistical prof that China’s air pollution is increasing the morali...

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... projected that in 2050 approximately 3.6 million people could end up dying prematurely from air pollution each year, most death being in China and India. The growth of China’s population is coming to a halt due to the rate of deaths from pollution becoming higher than the birth rate. Seventy four cities are now required to release data on levels of particulate matter 2.5 micrometers in diameter or smaller, which penetrate the body’s tissues. Chinese officials had been collecting the data but refusing to release it, until they came under pressure from Chinese who saw that the United States Embassy in Beijing was measuring the levels hourly and posting the data in a Twitter feed. This information will be useful to form main topic ideas and even as information in the body of my essay. It also has information to provide a comparison between China and the United States.