Exploring the relationship between air quality and mood: a new measure of climate sensitivity

Exploring the relationship between air quality and mood: a new measure of climate sensitivity

In a recent study published in PLoS ONE, researchers developed a novel measure, affective sensitivity to air pollution (ASAP), to assess psychological vulnerability to climate change. They focused on fluctuations in individuals' emotions caused by daily exposure to air pollution.

background

Air pollution can disrupt daily life and increase the likelihood of mental health problems such as anxiety and depression. Climate change exposes more people to air pollution, alters emotions and leads to fewer adaptation activities. Individual sensitivity to climate risks is a major factor in their vulnerability to climate change.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has redefined climate vulnerability in terms of sensitivity and adaptive capacity to climate change.

Examining fluctuations in individual emotions in response to fluctuations in air pollution can provide new insights into the short-term consequences of air pollution on well-being.

Furthermore, affect is vulnerable to daily fluctuations in air pollution because air pollution impairs affect-related health behaviors, including physical activity and good sleep.

About the study

In the present study, researchers developed the intra-individual variability construct ASAP to examine the influence of daily air pollution on daily fluctuations in affective state while accounting for individual heterogeneity in sensitivity to air pollution.

Researchers assessed ASAP using intra-individual covariates of daily air pollution, as defined by the US Air Quality Index (AQI), and daily impact assessments.

Each day, participants reported the strength of feeling 20 emotions to determine their daily affective states, including arousal and valence. Arousal refers to the physiological activity associated with an affective state, while daily affect valence indicates whether an affective state is positive or negative.

High arousal type positive emotions included attention, happiness, enthusiasm, excitement, and pride. Embarrassment, fear, stress, tension and excitement were the five most triggering unpleasant feelings.

The five low-arousal positive feelings were calm, contentment, serenity, relaxation, and contentment. The five negative emotions with low levels of arousal were boredom, despair, disappointment, melancholy and inertia.

The researchers used Bayesian models to analyze large-scale longitudinal data on daily impacts obtained from experiential sampling studies (150 people) over one year to quantify vulnerability to climate change. They examined the intra-individual variability of air pollution and its effects on arousal in three people with different ASAP levels recruited between April 23 and 18, 2011.

Between May 2010 and July 2011, participants completed telephone and online surveys about their lifestyle at three three-week intervals 4.5 months apart.

Researchers collected data on the daily emotional states of individuals from the iSAHIB (Intraindividual Research of Affect, Health, and Interpersonal Behavior) research, which involved formally educated and primarily working individuals aged 18 to 89 living in central Pennsylvania, USA. They collected air pollution information from the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

Results

Researchers analyzed 8,541 daily impact reports, 97% (n=8,250) of which could be linked to daily air pollution data.

AQI was available for 97% of reports received by iSAHIB. Individuals with a higher ASAP score experience greater fluctuations in their affective state due to daily changes in air pollution than those with a lower ASAP score.

Higher AQI values ​​are associated with lower arousal. On days with increasing air pollution, prehistoric man's affective arousal was lower. For example, each unit increase in air pollution decreased the original individual's air pollutionexcitationSteps around 0.01.

The team found significant differences in intra-individual sensitivity of affect arousal and valence to daily fluctuations in air pollution. Individuals with higher total exposure to air pollution had slightly less pronounced ASAP.

The data suggest that in the long term, people become sensitive to increases in air pollution through sensitization or habituation processes, such that fluctuations in overall exposure reduce the magnitude of ASAP.

The large inter-individual variability in the ASAP measure of affect valence and arousal implies that repeated assessments of people's daily emotional states represent a novel tool for quantifying sensitivity to climate change.

Conclusions

Based on the study results, ASAP is a novel intra-individual variability construct that describes fluctuations in an individual's emotional state in response to daily fluctuations in air pollution.

ASAP measures can improve the integration of emotional and mental health into climate adaptation programs, policies, strategies and initiatives.

ASAP can support risk assessments and enable tailored treatments to mitigate the effects of air pollution.

The threshold for air pollution alerts and preventive actions can be based on ASAP, which can help understand the processes underlying the long-term risk of negative mental health outcomes such as anxiety and depression.

Future ASAP research should include other study sites, detailed air pollution measurements, larger sample sizes, and data on preventive measures. The tool can assess the sensitivity of climate change to disasters such as floods or droughts to provide a more comprehensive picture.

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