THE INFLUENCE OF PARTICULATE MATTER ON HEALTH OUTCOMES: “EVALUATION OF POOR-QUALITY AIR AS A REASON OF VITAMIN D DEFICIENCY IN WOMEN

Abstract

It explores the effect of air pollution in affecting vitamin D deficiency in apparently healthy women in Pakistan, especially based on the relationship between air quality and vitamin D concentration. Since it has been proposed that poor quality air negatively affects Vitamin D, this study assesses this correlation in women from areas with high pollution compared to those with low pollution. Cross-sectional research data were collected by purposive sampling from 100 female participants in the postmenopausal group and aged years with no known chronic diseases, pregnancy, or factors that may affect vitamin D levels. The participants were recruited from Lahore and Islamabad and were divided by the level of pollution in these cities. They completed the demographic sheet, a questionnaire about sun exposure, a blood test for vitamin D, and a food frequency questionnaire. We obtained PM 2.5 levels for each place's air pollution exposure by cross-correlation of data from the US Consulate Pakistan Nowcast algorithm. Here, lower vitamin D status was significantly and negatively associated with pollution levels, which revealed that women living in areas with high pollution are more likely to be affected by the deficiency. The acquisition of data was cleared by both Nur International University and the National Hospital Institutional Review Boards. According to the results of the study, there is a high correlation between air quality and vitamin D levels in healthy women in Lahore and Islamabad. Using an independent sample t-test on the data, we determined that vitamin D mean levels are significantly different (p <.05) in the two cities, which supports the hypothesised link between air pollution and vitamin D deficiency.