{"id":26308,"date":"2023-04-17T14:01:02","date_gmt":"2023-04-17T06:01:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/smartairfilters.com\/?p=26308"},"modified":"2023-04-27T10:23:29","modified_gmt":"2023-04-27T02:23:29","slug":"what-level-of-pm2-5-safe","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/smartairfilters.com\/en\/blog\/what-level-of-pm2-5-safe\/","title":{"rendered":"What Level of PM2.5 Is Safe? New Research Reveals"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The WHO&#8217;s guideline limit for PM2.5 is 5 micrograms. But research shows reducing PM2.5 levels under 5 micrograms has significant health benefits and reduces mortality. What is the safe limit of PM2.5?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"has-text-align-center wp-block-heading\">Is the WHO PM2.5 Guideline of 5 Micrograms Safe?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>The WHO PM2.5 guideline is not intended to represent the safe limit of PM2.5. Rather, it is intended to provide targets for policymakers. In fact, the WHO itself stated that there are negative health effects below the limit. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p>The risk for various outcomes has been shown to increase with exposure and there is little evidence to suggest a threshold below which no adverse health effects would be anticipated. <\/p>\n<cite><a href=\"http:\/\/apps.who.int\/iris\/bitstream\/handle\/10665\/69477\/WHO_SDE_PHE_OEH_06.02_eng.pdf;jsessionid=C267BFECABFE5C693D6793C9064DAF79?sequence=1\">WHO Global update 2005<\/a><\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p>In addition, since the release of the WHO&#8217;s first guidelines in 1987, the PM2.5 guideline has been lowered multiple times, from 15 to 10 micrograms, and again from 10 to 5 micrograms. This pattern is very similar to how the CDC&#8217;s lead standards have changed over the decades:<\/p>\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"aligncenter size-full\"><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"532\" height=\"313\" src=\"https:\/\/smartairfilters.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/04\/lowering_BLLs_figure2.jpeg\" alt=\"Lead guidelines has lowered over the decades\" class=\"wp-image-26311\" srcset=\"https:\/\/smartairfilters.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/04\/lowering_BLLs_figure2.jpeg 532w, https:\/\/smartairfilters.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/04\/lowering_BLLs_figure2-300x177.jpeg 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 532px) 100vw, 532px\" \/><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n<p>Read More: <a href=\"https:\/\/smartairfilters.com\/en\/blog\/who-updates-air-quality-pollution-guidelines\/\">The WHO Updates PM2.5 Guidelines in 2021<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"has-text-align-center wp-block-heading\">Similar to Lead, There is No Safe Level of PM2.5<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>A new <a href=\"https:\/\/www.researchgate.net\/publication\/364026928_How_low_can_you_go_Air_pollution_affects_mortality_at_very_low_levels\">study<\/a> tried to find the answer to &#8220;What is the safe limit of PM2.5?&#8221;. They studied 7.1 million adults in one of the world&#8217;s lowest PM2.5 environments. The lowest observed PM2.5 concentration of 2.5 micrograms was used as the base level. <\/p>\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"aligncenter size-large is-resized\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/smartairfilters.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/04\/PM2.5-Dose-Response-Deaths-Weichenthal-835x1024.jpg\" alt=\"Study shows there is no safe level of PM2.5 air pollution\" class=\"wp-image-26310\" width=\"364\" height=\"446\" srcset=\"https:\/\/smartairfilters.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/04\/PM2.5-Dose-Response-Deaths-Weichenthal-835x1024.jpg 835w, https:\/\/smartairfilters.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/04\/PM2.5-Dose-Response-Deaths-Weichenthal-489x600.jpg 489w, https:\/\/smartairfilters.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/04\/PM2.5-Dose-Response-Deaths-Weichenthal-244x300.jpg 244w, https:\/\/smartairfilters.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/04\/PM2.5-Dose-Response-Deaths-Weichenthal-768x942.jpg 768w, https:\/\/smartairfilters.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/04\/PM2.5-Dose-Response-Deaths-Weichenthal-600x736.jpg 600w, https:\/\/smartairfilters.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/04\/PM2.5-Dose-Response-Deaths-Weichenthal.jpg 872w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 364px) 100vw, 364px\" \/><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n<p>As shown in the graph above, even slight increases in PM2.5 from the base level have significant increases in mortality. This shows that even in areas with the &#8220;<a href=\"https:\/\/smartairfilters.com\/en\/blog\/25-least-polluted-cities-in-world-2023-rankings\/\">best air quality in the world<\/a>&#8220;, lowering PM2.5 further can have significant health benefits and save lives.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Lowering levels below 2.5 micrograms would likely show a similar significant reduction in mortality. There are simply not enough places with such low levels to gather data from. <\/p>\n\n\n<div class='bottom-line'><div class='bottom-line-top'>Bottom Line<\/div><div class='bottom-line-title'>Save Levels of PM2.5<\/div><div class='bottom-line-content'>\nSimilar to lead, there is no safe level of PM2.5. Even at low levels, reducing PM2.5 further can signifcantly reduce mortality.\n<\/div><div class='bottom-line-last'>Smart Air<\/div><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The WHO&#8217;s guideline limit for PM2.5 is 5 micrograms. But research shows reducing PM2.5 levels under 5 micrograms has significant health benefits and reduces mortality. What is the safe limit of PM2.5? Is the WHO PM2.5 Guideline of 5 Micrograms Safe? The WHO PM2.5 guideline is not intended to represent &#8230; <\/p>\n<p class=\"read-more-container\"><a title=\"What Level of PM2.5 Is Safe? New Research Reveals\" class=\"read-more button\" href=\"https:\/\/smartairfilters.com\/en\/blog\/what-level-of-pm2-5-safe\/#more-26308\" aria-label=\"Read more about What Level of PM2.5 Is Safe? New Research Reveals\">Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9087,"featured_media":26312,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_relevanssi_hide_post":"","_relevanssi_hide_content":"","_relevanssi_pin_for_all":"","_relevanssi_pin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_unpin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_include_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_exclude_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_no_append":"","_relevanssi_related_not_related":"","_relevanssi_related_posts":"","_relevanssi_noindex_reason":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[17,452,260,257],"tags":[272,278,225,74],"class_list":["post-26308","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-air-pollution","category-air-quality","category-air-pollution-health-effects","category-pm2-5","tag-air-pollution","tag-air-quality","tag-health","tag-pm2-5","resize-featured-image"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/smartairfilters.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26308","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/smartairfilters.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/smartairfilters.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/smartairfilters.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9087"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/smartairfilters.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26308"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/smartairfilters.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26308\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":26471,"href":"https:\/\/smartairfilters.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26308\/revisions\/26471"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/smartairfilters.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26312"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/smartairfilters.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26308"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/smartairfilters.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26308"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/smartairfilters.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26308"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}