International Travelers Experience the Harmful Effects of Air Pollution

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For travelers who visit cities with high levels of air pollution, even a short stay leads to breathing problems that can take at least a week to recover from, a new study shows.

For travelers who visit cities with high levels of air pollution, even a short stay leads to breathing problems that can take at least a week to recover from, a new study shows..

Led by researchers at NYU School of Medicine, the study is the first of its kind, say the authors, to analyze pollution-related coughing and breathing difficulties and recovery times upon returning home, in healthy, young adults who’ve travelled internationally.

Published earlier this month in the Journal of Travel Medicine, the finding is timely given that the number of tourists travelling internationally is expected to grow to 1.8 billion by 2030, according to the World Tourism Organization.

“We had several reports that tourists were feeling sick when visiting polluted cities, so it became important for us to understand what was really happening to their health,” says senior study investigator Terry Gordon, PhD, a professor in the Department of Environmental Medicine at NYU Langone Health.

Read more at NYU Langone Health / NYU School of Medicine

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