Depression and Suicide Linked To Air Pollution In New Global Study (theguardian.com) 64
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Guardian: People living with air pollution have higher rates of depression and suicide, a systematic review of global data has found. Cutting air pollution around the world to the EU's legal limit could prevent millions of people becoming depressed, the research suggests. This assumes that exposure to toxic air is causing these cases of depression. Scientists believe this is likely but is difficult to prove beyond doubt. The particle pollution analyzed in the study is produced by burning fossil fuels in vehicles, homes and industry. The researchers said the new evidence further strengthened calls to tackle what the World Health Organization calls the "silent public health emergency" of dirty air.
The research, published in the journal Environmental Health Perspectives, used strict quality criteria to select and pool research data from 16 countries published up to 2017. This revealed a strong statistical link between toxic air and depression and suicide. [...] The data analyzed in the new research linked depression with air pollution particles smaller than 2.5 micrometers (equivalent to 0.0025 millimeters and known as PM2.5). People exposed to an increase of 10 micrograms per cubic meter (ug/m^3) in the level of PM2.5 for a year or more had a 10% higher risk of getting depression. Levels of PM2.5 in cities range from as high as 114ug/m^3 in Delhi, India, to just 6ug/m^3 in Ottawa, Canada. In UK cities in 2017, the average PM2.5 level was 13ug/m^3. The researchers estimated that lowering this to the WHO recommended limit of 10ug/m^3 could reduce depression in city dwellers by about 2.5%. The available data on suicide risk was for particles ranging up to 10 micrometers (PM10). The researchers found a short-term effect, with a 10ug/m^3 increase over three days raising the risk of suicide by 2%. "The results show strong correlations, but research that would prove a causal link is difficult because ethical experiments cannot deliberately expose people to harm," the report notes.
"The studies analyzed took account of many factors that might affect mental health, including home location, income, education, smoking, employment and obesity. But they were not able to separate the potential impact of noise, which often occurs alongside air pollution and is known to have psychological effects."
The research, published in the journal Environmental Health Perspectives, used strict quality criteria to select and pool research data from 16 countries published up to 2017. This revealed a strong statistical link between toxic air and depression and suicide. [...] The data analyzed in the new research linked depression with air pollution particles smaller than 2.5 micrometers (equivalent to 0.0025 millimeters and known as PM2.5). People exposed to an increase of 10 micrograms per cubic meter (ug/m^3) in the level of PM2.5 for a year or more had a 10% higher risk of getting depression. Levels of PM2.5 in cities range from as high as 114ug/m^3 in Delhi, India, to just 6ug/m^3 in Ottawa, Canada. In UK cities in 2017, the average PM2.5 level was 13ug/m^3. The researchers estimated that lowering this to the WHO recommended limit of 10ug/m^3 could reduce depression in city dwellers by about 2.5%. The available data on suicide risk was for particles ranging up to 10 micrometers (PM10). The researchers found a short-term effect, with a 10ug/m^3 increase over three days raising the risk of suicide by 2%. "The results show strong correlations, but research that would prove a causal link is difficult because ethical experiments cannot deliberately expose people to harm," the report notes.
"The studies analyzed took account of many factors that might affect mental health, including home location, income, education, smoking, employment and obesity. But they were not able to separate the potential impact of noise, which often occurs alongside air pollution and is known to have psychological effects."
Methodology (Score:5, Insightful)
Or, people with the means to relocate will. People without the means to relocate stay there. That's different from pollution causes mental problems.
Mental problems can lead to poor money management and less earnings. Maybe these are just the ones without the fortitude Or resources to get out.
This stuff is hard, and just accounting for different factors isn't enough.
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This is why we need real, educated editors to run Slashdot.
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There is the problem, you are asking the wrong question.
Are Eggs bad for you or are they Good for you?
The answer given is complex.
Eggs offer a lot of nutrients that are good for you. They have some aspects that can be harmful to you.
If you are starving or malnourished eggs would be very good for you.
If you have some health problems eggs or part of the eggs can be bad for you.
If you have allergies to eggs then they are really bad for you.
If you are healthy and in good shape eggs are just about as good as any
Re:Methodology (Score:4, Insightful)
We know how poor science reporting to the public is in general.
There is a strong correlational connection between Air Pollution and depression and suicide that is shown.
There is also a strong correlation between wearing leather and motorcycle injuries.
Proper scientist are not going to say Air Pollution causes depression, until they can find out what chemicals are causing the reaction. In the mean time while some may be looking at the chemicals, other will look at social difference between areas of clean air and dirty air. Also they should investigate areas with high depression with clean air and low depression and dirty air.
Science reporting likes to jump on the bandwagon to say LOOK AT WHAT SCIENCE FOUND! while the scientists went oh look more questions to investigate.
At work I am building some data analytics for management. They want a Green=Good Light and Red=Bad Light
However I constantly have to push them to understanding what they are looking at critically and know there can be problems in the Green light that we should be looking at, and the Red Light may actually be working well, but just not in a quantifiable way.
For example a company that wants to increase volume so they want to look at employee performance. They find the new employees seem to have a high performance while the older one seem to have less of a performance. They fire the old employees only to find they go bankrupt because all the high value hard cases are not being properly dealt with, and those though but high paying customers leave. Any metric only gives a part of the picture, enough to help you to focus your questions and look further into the data to figure out why it is what it is. In this case the experienced employees are dealing with a few but complex cases, while the new employees are just popping out the easy ones.
Depression from High Pollution areas can have a lot of causes. But we now have a strong correlation to help focus the investigation vs just looking at other factors without a correlation.
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More polluted cities, means the governments cares less about it citizens and more about the profit generated by that pollution. Corresponding to greater pollution in cities will also be less social welfare spending in those cities, treating citizens like consumables to be used, abused and thrown away.
The pollution is just another measure of socio political corruption, that results in people being exploited, making them depressed and suicidal. The pollution is not necessarily creating the suicidal tendencie
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That is a good hypothesis, however to make that assertion scientific you will need to get some tests and collect data to see if it actually matches your guess or not.
This parents post isn't science, but a philosophical thinking problem.
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There is also a strong correlation between wearing leather and motorcycle injuries.
As well as welts and bruises when we visit Miss Trixie's House of Pain. Jus sayin'
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You haven't read the summary or (god forbid!) the abstract. They adjust for everything you mentioned, "genius", and more. And as to the "specific compound" being required for causation – even impairing olfaction can cause or exacerbate depression [nih.gov].
Amateur.
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Read the paper. They accounted for things like different income levels and other health issues. Then they found a strong statistical correlation that warrants more research and immediate action.
Given that it's people's health at stake here and pollution is known to have other health consequences (e.g. breathing/lung problems) we shouldn't just ignore this while we spend another decade trying to figure out exactly what the mechanism is.
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It is also plausible that most if not all people aren't meant to live stacked one upon another 30 levels high. I'd assume that cities generally have more air pollution that the countryside.
So how exactly do we account for population density?
Re:Methodology (Score:5, Informative)
So how exactly do we account for population density?
Simple. You sample high density areas with a range of densities and air pollution. You find areas of similar densities, but differing pollution levels. You see if depression tracks more highly among similar densities with higher pollution levels. It's really simple experimental design, though having enough sampled areas to get viable data might be a slog. You can also do multi-factor analysis to disentangle the two factors. People have been doing mathematics-based science now for a few hundred years. You can probably count on them to have answers about this shit and they've probably taken these things into account before publishing.
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It is also plausible that most if not all people aren't meant to live stacked one upon another 30 levels high. I'd assume that cities generally have more air pollution that the countryside.
So how exactly do we account for population density?
I think they accounted for population density by comparing cities to cities, which wouldn't hard to do statistically. But, you can find incredibly depressed people in rural areas because of crippling poverty and lack of economic opportunities too, which I think a bigger factor for depression and suicide rates. The Guardian article states the study accounted for economic factors, but provides no detail how, and I'm not giving them the benefit of the doubt on that statement.
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So how exactly do we account for population density?
Recruit Thanos [youtube.com]
Re: Methodology (Score:2)
Actually I was thinking that this has to be one of the worst studies I think I have seen. This is such a horrible case of correlation not equaling causation. They would have come to the exact same relation by instead of studying pollution they study population vs depression. I am fairly certain that the most polluted cities are also the most heavily populated. It does not take a neuroscientist to fathom that living on top of each, other packed in like sardines, would make anybody fucking depressed.
Another p
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Or, people with the means to relocate will. People without the means to relocate stay there. That's different from pollution causes mental problems.
Silicon Valley has significantly higher portion of people with college degrees living there. While at the same time has significant problems with air pollution, especially in Santa Clara County (Google, Apple, Intel, AMD, ...)
Mental problems can lead to poor money management and less earnings. Maybe these are just the ones without the fortitude Or resources to get out.
Depression and anxiety is high in tech workers, even though they make significantly more than the average American.
I'm don't agree that "getting out" is a common goal that everyone shares but can't always accomplish.
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Silicon Valley has significantly higher portion of people with college degrees living there. While at the same time has significant problems with air pollution, especially in Santa Clara County (Google, Apple, Intel, AMD, ...)
So what you're saying is that college degrees lead to air pollution?
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So what you're saying is that college degrees lead to air pollution?
Yeah, a lot of people get into web development and burn their BScEE. Collectively that's a lot of air pollution.
They're probably right (Score:2)
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</sarcasm>
This explains it (Score:2)
Double Blind and Controls? (Score:3, Insightful)
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RTFS, dumaß.
Yes, they are sure. Yes they speak about links, that is, mainly correlation. Yes they noted they cannot prove causal link directly, because the experiment is impossible.
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No, I stated that yes, they are sure "it's not just urbanization or population density", to quote the OC, because they adjusted for that. The only thing they could not eliminate was acoustic noise as a co-factor in those cases.
Seriously, this thread wasn't that difficult to follow!
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Yes they are. Read the paper, they accounted for all that and more. It's quite impressive the lengths they went to.
Correlation does not imply causation (Score:1)
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That isn't true at all. The idea that country people are friendly is a myth. Many country people are loners who distrust anyone outside of their family.
It varies. Yeah, we see the occasional "compound" people. In general though, my experience has been that once outside my city, suddenly people will say hello, stop to help you if you have vehicle problems. chat with you even. One of the most shocking incidents I've had was a couple of teenage girls that smiled and said "hello". I wasn't sure what to do, as modern mores are that you don't interact with them if you are male.
I've gotten myself stuck in the woods, and people have stopped to pick me up.
None
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And most urbanites are afraid of anyone that might look at them and speak to them.
It's not so much fear as, at least here in NYC, any stranger that starts talking to you on the street is one of five things: First is a tourist needing directions, which is fine, but 2 is homeless beggars, 3 is scam artists, 4 is people trying to sell you shit, and 5 is people who are insane. And if you're a woman, there's a 6th type, men who hit on you in the most rude ways possible. However if someone's in need of help, people will absolutely step up, had a great example a while back showing the best and
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I also have personal anecdotes from my time in the country, and they aren't all positive. Maybe I just lived in a meaner country town.
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I think some of it is that in the country, the assho- loners just don't associate with anyone unless they want to. In the city, you are forced to interact with people past your personal threshold, and it leads to people acting out in some ways.
I also have personal anecdotes from my time in the country, and they aren't all positive. Maybe I just lived in a meaner country town.
Sure - various places have various interaction levels. That one small town where I stop sometimes is very friendly. I'll get a soda at the ma and pa store, and the lady will chat with me for a bit, and the teenage girls will sorta freak me out by saying hello - yet in my small city an adult man saying hello to a teenage girl might get him arrested or #metoo'ed depending on her mood.
So yes, there are different places, and different people. But we're talking generalities here, not strict dividing lines.
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People who don't fit in the country will still be able to thrive in the city. Thus leaving the country and moving to a city is an option. Basicly, the country purges all people that don't adhere to its life style, while the city is able to accommodate people with very diverse life styles just fine. If we didn't have cities to flee to, people in the country would be hitting each other on the head all the time.
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It's a reversal of cause and effect.
People who don't fit in the country will still be able to thrive in the city. Thus leaving the country and moving to a city is an option. Basicly, the country purges all people that don't adhere to its life style, while the city is able to accommodate people with very diverse life styles just fine. If we didn't have cities to flee to, people in the country would be hitting each other on the head all the time.
I think you folks have watched too much of the movie Deliverance. It was a Drama, not a documentary.
Here's the thing - there are all kinds of different people living in the countryside. Ramshackle 1960's mobile homes with Trans-Camaros and refrigerators in the front yard, and big beautiful houses that are pristine and very expensive. As well as everything in between. I would note that the occupants tend a bit toward the conservative side, but there are plenty of progressives to go around.
I have noted
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In fact, I claim that the people that can't be too friendly or won't be, are moving from the countryside to the city, because there, they aren't forced to blend in. They can live in concluse or be unfriendly, because they still can get to a supermarket and buy grocery, or work on a job without to much interaction with other people. And the neighbors don't look what you are doing in your free time, as long as you do
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I don't claim the contrary. I don't claim that people in the country would be less friendly.
In fact, I claim that the people that can't be too friendly or won't be, are moving from the countryside to the city, because there, they aren't forced to blend in. They can live in concluse or be unfriendly, because they still can get to a supermarket and buy grocery, or work on a job without to much interaction with other people. And the neighbors don't look what you are doing in your free time, as long as you don't make too much noice or start to smell funny.
It's not the city that causes people to be less friendly. It's the country that forces people to be more friendly or go away.
Some folks say that the reason city people are more aloof is merely the large amounts of people.
I say hello to people I meet when I'm off in the countryside. I'd lose my voice if I did that in the city. Regardless of it all, My career has taken me to spend extended time in both cities and countryside, large and small towns.
And yes, it has been my experience that various places have various levels of friendliness. This is a generality. People in New York are impatient. People in Philly are often sarcas
Depression is a natural response (Score:1)
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Who is "they"? The boogeyman? Your medical staff?
Re: Depression is a natural response (Score:2)
My staff is quite medicinal in its ability to remove depression. Sorry, just didnt wanna pass that one up
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I'm just thinking of all the lost money to pharma if we were to fix pollution and people aren't depressed anymore!
Having lived in both, I am ready to believe (Score:3)
The researchers tried to isolate health, wealth, etc, and still found a correlation. I do notice people are more relaxed in the suburbs...I am not sure if that's because of factors outside noise and air pollution, but I do notice it personally. It is amazing to me when I find myself 45 miles outside the city in a store and when a store clerk talks to me and they not only speak English, but are actually interested in helping me. The same when strangers just start a conversation and are friendly and sincere as can be. I almost find it jarring...like when someone you barely know gives you a hug...you know there is nothing wrong and it's the way things "should" be, but it's so unusual, you feel uncomfortable. I'm very used to keeping to myself and interacting as little as I need to...making small talk as little as I can, being direct and to the point when talking.
I think regardless of its link to suicide and depression, air pollution is bad. No one wants it. We should find ways to reduce it. Even if it doesn't make you depressed, engine exhaust has carcinogens and toxins in it you would never want to breath. If you think it's not a problem, I suggest you start your car and close the garage door and see how long before you change your mind...if it's that bad up close from one car, how can it be OK from millions on the road burning a lot more fuel? I am sure there has to be non-disruptive ways to improve urban air quality we can explore, light traffic light timing or planting more trees/shrubs to confine/absorb the pollution. Even if you don't choose to live in a city, a LOT of people you rely on do and a LOT businesses you rely on set up in urban areas these days (nearly every software company). It affects us all more than we realize.
Re: Having lived in both, I am ready to believe (Score:2)
I am very anti-pollution. Im not so much fond of coming up with dumb ways to get people not to pollute. If depression is going to be used as an argument to not pollute I think itâ(TM)s a very weak argument. I think a better argument is that 25 years ago one in fifty came down with cancer. Now it is 1 in 3. Whats changed?
Higher density of population, and with it more cars. But also a much higher proliferation of wireless frequencies and transmissions. Hell both are probably contributors.
I would not want
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When you are exposed to too many of them it impacts your mood. Most can be OK - but especially any customer service job just ask ANYBODY who worked in that... IT support included. 1 bad customer can ruin your whole week and lesser ones ruin your whole day. A small town is going to have LESS interactions and exposure so all things being equal you know they will not be put into a bad mood as often. That bad mood spreads like a social virus; so do good moods.
You are guarded and removed in the city; outside,
Ruled out with an iron fist (Score:3)
Are they sure it wasn't city living causing the depression. As the years go by, more and more live in growing cities, especially in once-agrarian kleptocracies that are now more economically free, and thus can afford specialization.
Correlation is not causation (Score:2)
So, they've proven city people are more miserable (Score:2)
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That this bunko study tries to finger pollution as the culprit suggests an ulterior motive.
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It's true. But also, correlation is rarely just random. There are basically three possible causes for things A and B to correlate:
A causes B
B causes A
B and A are both caused by another variable C (or a multitude of variables)
Now here, it is highly unlikely (just by using common sense) that depression and suicides cause higher levels of air pollution. Thus the real alternatives are that either higher levels of air pollution cause higher amounts of depression and suicides, or that there is another variabl
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Changes in A and B are unrelated coincidence, or any shared cause is so distant that it may as well be pure coincidence.
Right? (Score:1)