HARVESTING

Multiple national and international studies show a clear association between air pollution levels and population health events, showing an increase in the number of daily hospital emergency room visits due to cardio-respiratory diseases after episodes of high air pollution. Likewise, a greater number of deaths and hospitalizations due to these pathologies has been evidenced. In addition to the above, several studies show that this effect is largely due to the baseline conditions of the population at risk, causing a greater number of events due to increased susceptibility. This phenomenon has been called the Harvesting Effect or Harvesting. In this study, we seek to show first, the effect of air pollution on population health at the regional level, with information from the Metropolitan Region, Chile, during the years 2010 to 2014. Through the analysis, a direct relationship between pollution levels and monthly deaths from lung cancer is observed.