Urban air quality and the effects on human health in urban region case study: Selangor state, Malaysia / Nurul Ashikin Mabahwi

Various researchers have proven the connection between air quality and human health, especially in respiratory diseases. Yearly, Malaysian is suffering from haze due to trans-boundary pollution from Indonesia and local pollution sources. Urban regions are facing increasing pollution from vehicle emissions, industries and domestic heating sources at a level that exceeds the capacity to disperse and dilute emissions to non-harmful exposure levels. Often, this unfortunate incidence leads to the increase of unhealthy days. Nevertheless, for Selangor, several unhealthy days were recorded, especially during the dry period. Concern on the effects of air pollution rises because Ministry of Health Malaysia stated "that diseases of the respiratory system are one of the principal causes of hospitalisation in 2011. However, there is a lack of study on the relationship between air quality and human health in urban regions, especially in Malaysia. Thus, this study aspired to find the relationship between air quality in the urban region of Selangor and human health with the focus on respiratory (air-borne) diseases. Air quality data for this study is obtained from Department of Environment Malaysia, based on the air pollution index of five continuous air quality monitoring stations in Selangor. While the health data were obtained by questionnaire survey and based on self-reported cases by respondents. The correlation test was made to seek the significance relationship between air quality and respiratory. The outcome of the study proves the significance relationship between air quality and respiratory health among respondents. Therefore, necessary suggestions were formulated to improve the air quality in the urban region thus improving the health condition in future.