Impacts of BTEX exposure on global neonatal preterm births

Long-term exposure to toxic volatile organic compounds, such as benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene, and xylene (BTEX), may result in negative impacts for human health and neonatal preterm births for pregnant women. Progress has been made on regional air pollution epidemiological studies on the impacts of BTEX exposure on neonatal preterm births. However, global neonatal preterm births attributable to long-term BTEX exposure have not been reported in the literature yet. In this study, we employed a global chemical transport model, GEOS-Chem (Goddard Earth Observing System coupled with chemistry), in conjunction with an epidemiological model, to quantify the global country-specific neonatal preterm births associated with BTEX exposure for the year 2015. Model simulated surface annual mean BTEX concentrations in GEOS-Chem have been thoroughly evaluated against global in-situ observations. A preliminary result has shown that global mean annual total of 6.13 million (95% confidence interval: 4.58 6.97 million) preterm births attribute to BTEX exposure for the year 2015, with largest contributions from India (25.6%), followed by China (18.9%), Pakistan (6.2%) and Indonesia (3.9%). This study has significant implications on air pollution mitigation policies associated with country-specific anthropogenic BTEX emission reductions.