Human Exposure to Carbon Monoxide in Urban Regions of Asia and the Global South
By Peter Flachsbart, Ph.D., AICP
Associate Professor
Department of Urban and Regional Planning
University of Hawaii at Manoa
In May I was invited to serve as a guest editor of a special issue of the open-access journal Sustainability by their editorial office in Beijing, China. The journal is published by MDPI in Basel, Switzerland. This article briefly describes the aim and scope of the special issue and how to submit a manuscript.
Developing countries in Asia and the Global South have witnessed increasing rates of motorization (vehicles per 1000 people) during the last two decades. In 2004, the World Health Organization (WHO) reported that road traffic injuries constitute a major public health crisis for these countries. More than half the people killed in traffic crashes in developing countries are young adults, who are often the main breadwinners of the family. The economic cost of traffic crashes to low- and middle-income countries ranged between 1 and 2 percent of their GNP, which exceeded the total development aid that these countries received. WHO identified a variety of risk factors for road traffic injuries, but it did not specifically identify human exposure to carbon monoxide (CO) as a risk factor. Nevertheless, a World Bank report in 1997 recognized that certain human activities, if performed in combination, could increase a person’s risk to a motor vehicle crash. The report attributed that risk to elevated levels of carboxyhemoglobin (COHb) in the blood, caused by exposure to sources of CO emissions commonly found in daily life.
Incomplete combustion produces CO emissions from sources that burn organic matter or carbon-based fuels. Human exposure to ambient and microenvironmental CO concentrations occurs during a variety of daily activities such as active and passive smoking, traveling by a motor vehicle in congested traffic, and cooking food over an unvented stove. The WHO reported that three billion people cook and heat their homes using stoves that use organic matter or carbon-based fuels. Many of these people live in developing countries, where household pollution plays a role in the death of four million people every year from strokes, heart disease, lung cancer, pneumonia and other ailments. Human exposure to CO elevates COHb levels and starves critical body organs, especially the heart and brain, of oxygen.
Diagnosis of CO poisoning is based on a COHb level of more than 3 percent among nonsmokers and more than 10 percent among smokers. Elevated levels of 5-7.6% COHb have been shown to impair vigilance in healthy experimental subjects. Some studies have shown decreased vigilance in subjects with only 2-3% COHb, while other studies show no effects on vigilance or other health endpoints at COHb levels up to 12.6%. Vigilance is essential to the ability of a pedestrian or motorist to safely navigate chaotic vehicular traffic conditions. These conditions often exist in urban regions of certain developing countries in Asia and the Global South. Compromised navigation skills in combination with other factors can increase one’s risk of being involved in a crash with a motor vehicle.
This special issue of Sustainability aims to contribute to the study of human exposure to carbon monoxide and its relation to the risk of motor vehicle injuries and fatalities in urban regions of developing countries in Asia and the Global South. The following website identifies questions that authors are encouraged to address for this special issue and how to submit a manuscript: https://www.mdpi.com/journal/sustainability/special_issues/human_exposure.
October 31, 2021 is the deadline for submitting a manuscript. For further information about my professional career, please visit my personal website: www.peterflachsbart.com. Feel free to email your questions about this special issue to me at flachsba@hawaii.edu.