Health hazards of ozone pollution in the door

The COVID-19 pandemic has brought heightened attention to air quality indoor . People are thinking about how these invisible virus particles can spread indoors. However, the hazards of the indoor environment are not just the virus that causes the epidemic. According to WHO, air pollution is the world's greatest environmental health threat. Many people have always believed that ozone in the air is a double-edged sword. It has the side of sterilizing and inactivating viruses, but also has the side of endangering human health. Modern research suggests that ozone in indoor air has risen to be one of the most important pollutants.


Ozone can reach the deep part of the respiratory tract, and has a strong stimulating effect on the respiratory organs, causing the contraction of the respiratory tract.

The degree of its stimulation is better than that of nitrogen oxides and sulfur dioxide, and its toxicity to the respiratory system is more than 10 times greater than that of nitrogen oxides. The olfactory threshold of ozone is very low. When the concentration reaches 0.02 ppm, you can smell the odor; At 1ppm, the eyes, nose, and throat are dry, with burning sensation, and headache. No matter how long the time is, the central nervous system will be disturbed and the thinking will be disordered.

In addition, ozone can also hinder the function of blood oxygen transport, resulting in tissue hypoxia; damage to thyroid function, bone calcification, and potential systemic effects, such as inducing lymphocyte chromosomal aberration, damaging the activity of certain enzymes and producing hemolytic reactions.

Long-term ozone exposure linked to chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.

According to a report, in 2017, long-term ozone exposure alone caused 472,000 deaths from COPD worldwide. The number of deaths caused by ozone exposure has been increasing in recent years. Global deaths from ozone exposure increased by 4% from 1990 to 2010; from 2010 to 2017, deaths increased by about 15%.

Asthma disease burden from short-term exposure to ozone pollution higher than PM2.5.

Short-term exposure to ozone can exacerbate asthma and cause other respiratory diseases. The research team of Professor Anenberg of George Washington University evaluated the disease burden caused by short-term exposure to ozone and found that about 9-23 million asthma emergency cases worldwide each year may be caused by short-term exposure to ozone, which is even higher than the short-term exposure of PM2.5 Asthma disease burden from exposure (5-10 million see a doctor per year).