- 1Department of Civil Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology Delhi (IIT Delhi), New Delhi, India (parmarparesh592@gmail.com)
- 2Department of Psychiatry, Atal Bihari Vajpayee Institute of Medical Sciences and Dr. Ram Manohar Lohia Hospital, New Delhi, India (doctorminachandra@gmail.com)
- 3Netherlands institute of space research, Leiden, Netherlands (shubhamsharma3032@gmail.com)
- 4Arun Duggal Centre of Excellence for Research in Climate Change and Air Pollution (CERCA), IIT Delhi, New Delhi, India (harshakota@gmail.com)
Recent research has reported an increase in Ground Level Ozone (GLO) concentrations in South Asia, with ongoing climate change being one of the contributing factors to this rise. In the lower-middle income economies such as India, studies related to cognitive impacts of GLO are insignificant and scarce. This time-series study aims to quantify the risk of cognitive disorders associated with ozone exposure for Delhi. The high-resolution gridded (5km*5km) daily maximum 8-hour mean ozone concentration data (MDA8) retrieved from WRF-Chem simulation were linked to geocoded-anonymized daily hospital admissions data of several cognitive disorders (e.g., depression, anxiety, Parkinson's disease, etc.). The WRF-Chem model was simulated for the Delhi domain over a four-year (2016-2019), for the same period hospital admissions data were collected. The generalized additive model (GAM) with Poisson distribution was utilized for examine an association of O3 exposure with cognitive disorders. The delayed effect of exposure was assessed employing 20-days lag. The results of relative risk (RR) against lag days showed inverted-U shape curve with highest RR of 1.0092 (95% CI: 1.0051-1.0134) on 10th lag day. The age-gender-stratified analysis revealed that females (RR: 1.0085, lag-day: 17) exhibited slightly higher risk compared to males (RR: 1.0071, lag-day: 9), while the younger demographic (age≤60 years) were at marginally elevated risks than elderly (age>60 years). In India, the mitigation measures and policies are predominantly aimed at reducing particulate matter pollution. The findings of this study are pertinent to present and future contexts, whereby evidences of intensifying effects of climate change on ozone are more pronounced than particulate matter. The research offers significant insights into the relationship between ‘public health’ and ‘air pollution’, contributing to the existing literature on highly polluted urban environment like Delhi.
Keywords: Ground level ozone (GLO); Cognitive impacts; Generalized Additive Model (GAM); WRF-Chem
How to cite: Parmar, P. D., Chandra, M., Sharma, S., and Kota, S. H.: Cognitive impacts of Ground Level Ozone (GLO) exposure in Delhi: Estimating a risk in the highly polluted urban environment, EGU General Assembly 2025, Vienna, Austria, 27 Apr–2 May 2025, EGU25-4878, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu25-4878, 2025.
