New study links indoor pollution to headaches and itchiness
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Symptoms like headache, itchy skin, and stuffy nose may not be linked to cold. Indoor pollution and low quality of air can cause similar reactions.
A study conducted among the women and children in Lucknow has linked indoor pollution to over 10 different ailments including cough, wheezing, dry throat, shortness of breath, and itchy eyes among others. Experts were assessing the health risk women and children face specifically due to indoor air pollution.
60% of the respondents said headache is the most common symptom and 62% of children reported to have experienced stuffy nose. 30.6% of children complained of dry/sore throat. Research scholar Samridhi Dwivedi said that his team found 51.1% of the respondents to be consciously unaware of the household pollution.
560 women living in three different microenvironments were interviewed for the study. 77.5% of them were planned residential areas and 19.1% were from the industrial belt of the city. And 3.4% of the women were from the commercial belt. The symptoms were more prevalent in October and November, followed by February and April.
The team used a real time portable air sampler set up in the living area to analyse the quality of air and its variation pattern. Concentration of PM 2.5 pollutants indoor were found to be six times higher than the WHO standards. The deposition of particles in women was the highest (61.1%) in the head region. It was followed by pulmonary (21.1%) and tracheobronchial region (17.3%).