Air pollution and demographic indicators of public health in Russian cities
Authors:   Lomonosov Moscow State University, Faculty of Biology, Department of Plant Ecology and Geography, Leninskie Gory Street, 1, p. 12, Moscow, 119234, Russia, Budilova Elena V. , Lagutin Michail B. ,   Lomonosov Moscow State University, Faculty of Mechanics and Mathematics, Leninskie Gory Street, 1, p. 12, Moscow, 119234, Russia
Published: July 2022

Materials and methods. The source of information on fertility and mortality was Russian Federal State Statis-tics Service data on 173 cities of the Russian Federation with a population of more than 100 thousand peo-ple for 2014-2016. The sources of air pollution were the Yearbooks of the state of air pollution in cities in Russia for the same period. A nonparametric analysis of variance was used to compare cities with different levels of air pollution in terms of fertility, mortality, birth-death and aging index. Results. Comparison of groups of cities with different maximum one-time levels of atmospheric pollution with benzo[a]pyrene revealed significant differences between the groups in terms of total fertility and mortal-ity rates, birth-death ratio and aging index. Comparison of groups of cities with different average annual levels of air pollution for 19 pollutants showed that only for benzo[a]pyrene, nitrogen dioxide, nitric oxide and ammonia a statistically significant relation-ship with the characteristics of population health was found. For benzo[a]pyrene, the results were similar to those obtained for the maximum one-time concentrations of benzo[a]pyrene (except for the total mortality rate, for which the relationships are not significant). Statistically significant relationships of air pollution with nitrogen dioxide, nitrogen oxide and ammonia were revealed with the total mortality rate and the birth-death ratio, and for ammonia pollution also with the demographic aging index. Conclusion. In cities of the Russian Federation, the maximum one-time air pollution with benzo[a]pyrene is statistically significantly associated with the total fertility rate, birth-death ratio and the aging index: in groups of cities with an increase in the level of atmospheric air pollution, the median values of the total fer-tility rate and the birth-death ratio are increasing, and the median values of the aging index are decreasing. Comparison of groups of cities with different average annual levels of air pollution for 19 pollutants re-vealed statistically significant effects for pollution with benzo[a]pyrene, nitrogen dioxide, nitrogen oxide and ammonia. A statistically significant heterogeneity of the groups of cities with different average annual levels of benzo[a]pyrene was revealed in terms of the total fertility rate, birth-death ratio and aging index: with an increase in the level of atmospheric air pollution, the median values of the total fertility rate and the birth-death ratio increase, while the median values of the aging index decrease. A statistically significant hetero-geneity of the groups of cities with different average annual levels of air pollution with nitrogen dioxide, ni-tric oxide and ammonia was revealed in terms of the total mortality rate and the birth-death ratio, and for ammonia pollution also in terms of the demographic aging index. In cities with a high level of air pollution with nitrogen dioxide and ammonia, the total mortality rate is higher.