Considerable evidence of the existence of health inequalities and of the socioeconomic factors explaining them has been compiled over the past twenty years. It is currently a demonstrated fact that a non-insignificant proportion of inequalities are caused by environmental problems. These factors are generally, but not exclusively, linked to sex, social, and economic variables.
Overall, the living environment and, consequently, environmental conditions, can contribute to socioeconomic and health inequalities in two ways, whether independently or, more likely, jointly. In the first place, due to differential exposure, whereby the most economically disadvantaged population groups have a greater exposure to environmental problems, including, among others, air pollution, and, in the second place, differential susceptibility to the exposure, whereby the main adverse health effects caused by environmental problems tend to develop in the most economically disadvantaged people because of their greater vulnerability.
With regard to environmental epidemiology in the context of environmental inequalities, my research has mainly focused on analyzing the association between exposure to air pollutants and human health.
Generally speaking, there are two types of health effects related to exposure to air pollution. On the one hand, the effects related to acute short-term exposure, which result in increased mortality, increased hospital admissions due to respiratory or cardiovascular disease, increased number of visits to the Emergency Room and/or Primary Care clinics due to respiratory or cardiovascular disease, drug abuse, reduced activity and performance, work and school absenteeism, acute symptoms (cough, mucus, respiratory infections, or rhinitis), and physiological changes (lung function). On the other hand, the effects attributed to prolonged or long-term exposure, ranging from increased mortality secondary to respiratory or cardiovascular disease, an increased incidence and prevalence of chronic respiratory disease (asthma or chronic obstructive pulmonary disease [COPD]), lung cancer, and chronic cardiovascular disease.
While short-term effects are assessed using ecological designs, usually based on time series (e.g., association between daily nitrogen dioxide exposure levels in the city of Barcelona and daily mortality among city residents), the analysis of long-term effects is mostly based on individual designs, either spatial or spatiotemporal.
In my case, I mainly conduct analyses of the long-term health effects of exposure to air pollution. In the cases of long-term exposure, we consider that a person, as a result of residing in a given area, has been exposed to a (mean) level of several environmental variables in the small area in which they have been living.