ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Public Health
Sec. Infectious Diseases: Epidemiology and Prevention
This article is part of the Research TopicWorld TB Day 2025: Yes! We Can End TB: Commit, Invest, DeliverView all 9 articles
Study on the Impact of Common Air Pollution Indicators on Tuberculosis Incidence in High-TB-Burden Countries Worldwide
Provisionally accepted
- 1Xinjiang Medical University, Ürümqi, China
- 2People's Hospital of Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, Xinjiang, China
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Objective To explore the effect of air pollution on tuberculosis(TB) in multiple countries, and to provide scientific reference for air pollution treatment and tuberculosis prevention and control. Methods Spearman's correlation analysis and generalized additive models of air pollution indicators and annual incidence of tuberculosis in the top 20 countries with global tuberculosis incidence in 2021 were conducted to investigate the association effect between air pollution and tuberculosis incidence globally from 1990 to 2020.The severity of the global TB epidemic in 2021 varied widely among countries, and Spearman's correlation analyses showed a positive correlation between TB incidence and HAP (rHAP=0.476), and negative correlations between NO2, O3, PM, and GDP and TB incidence (rNO2=-0.622, rO3=-0.419, rPM=-0.323, and rGDP=-0.477). By examining the effects of influencing factor interactions on the development of tuberculosis, it was found that at HAP <0.2, TB incidence tended to increase with increasing NO2, and the risk of TB incidence increased at lower NO2 (2-6 ppb) and O3 <40 µg/m 3 .There is a synergistic amplification of the increase in TB incidence by HAP, O3, GDP and NO2, with low NO2 concentrations, low HAP and high O3 conditions favouring TB. The incidence of TB is adversely affected by air pollution to varying degrees across countries, so countries can target preventive measures to reduce the risk of TB.Tuberculosis(TB) ； Pulmonary tuberculosis(PTB) ； Air pollution ； Generalized additive models(GAMs)；Interactive effects of air pollutantsThe influence of various air pollution indicators on TB incidence varies from country to country, so this study may provide a reference for national TB prevention policies.
Keywords: Interactive effects of air pollutants, Generalized additive models(GAMs), Air Pollution, Pulmonary tuberculosis(PTB), tuberculosis(TB)
Received: 14 May 2025; Accepted: 07 Oct 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Chang, Chen, Chen, Du, Zhang, Lu, Zhang and Zheng. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Yanling Zheng, 3196585554@qq.com
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