Health impact assessment of air pollution in megacity of Tehran, Iran

The aims of the present study were to provide quantitative data on the impact of air pollution on the health ofpeople living in tehran city, the most populated city of iran. the approach proposed by the world healthorganization (who) was applied using the airq 2.2.3 software developed by the who european centre forenvironment and health, bilthoven division. concentrations of ozone, nitrogen dioxide, sulfur dioxide andparticulate matter of aerodynamic diameter ? 10 ?m (pm10) were used to assess human exposure and healthimpacts in terms of attributable proportion of the health outcome, annual number of excess cases of mortality forall causes, and cardiovascular and respiratory diseases. the annual average of pm10, so2, no2 and o3 in tehranwere 90.58, 89.16, 85 and 68.82 ?g/m3, respectively. considering short-term effects, pm10 had the highest healthimpact on the 8,700,000 inhabitants of tehran city, causing an excess of total mortality of 2194 out of 47284 in ayear. sulfur dioxide, nitrogen dioxide and ozone caused about, respectively, 1458, 1050 and 819 excess cases oftotal mortality. results indicate that the magnitude of the health impact estimated for the city of tehranunderscores the need for urgent action to reduce the health burden of air pollution.