ORCID Profile
0000-0003-2549-1750
Current Organisations
Stanford University
,
Aarhus University
,
Aarhus Universitet
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Publisher: Copernicus GmbH
Date: 06-03-2013
DOI: 10.5194/ACPD-13-5871-2013
Abstract: Abstract. We have developed an integrated model system, EVA (Economic Valuation of Air pollution), based on the impact-pathway chain, to assess the health-related economic externalities of air pollution resulting from specific emission sources or sectors, which can be used to support policy-making with respect to emission control. Central for the system is a newly developed tagging method capable of calculating the contribution from a specific emission source or sector to the overall air pollution levels, taking into account the non-linear atmospheric chemistry. The main objective of this work is to identify the anthropogenic emission sources in Europe and Denmark that contribute the most to human health impacts using this tagging method. In this study, we applied the EVA system to Europe and Denmark, with a detailed analysis of health-related external costs from the ten major emission sectors and their relative contributions. The paper contains a thorough description of the EVA system, the main results from the assessment of the main contributors and a discussion of the most important atmospheric chemical reactions relevant for interpreting the results. The main conclusion from the analysis of the ten major emission sectors in Europe and Denmark is that the major contributors to health-related external costs are major power production, agriculture, road traffic, and non-industrial domestic combustion, including wood combustion. We conclude that when regulating the emissions of ammonia from the agricultural sector, both the impacts on nature and on human health should be taken into account. This study confirms that air pollution constitutes a serious problem to human health and that the related external costs are considerable. The results in this work emphasize the importance of defining the right questions in the decision making process, since most of the atmospheric chemical compounds are linked via non-linear chemical reactions, which are important to take into account. The results from assessing the impacts from each emission sector depend clearly on the assumption that the other emission sectors are not changed, especially emissions changing concentrations of atmospheric OH and therefore live times of other chemical species.
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 02-2020
Publisher: Environmental Health Perspectives
Date: 08-2021
DOI: 10.1289/EHP8090
Publisher: American Medical Association (AMA)
Date: 11-2019
Publisher: University of California Press
Date: 2018
DOI: 10.1525/ELEMENTA.265
Abstract: The goal of the Tropospheric Ozone Assessment Report (TOAR) is to provide the research community with an up-to-date scientific assessment of tropospheric ozone, from the surface to the tropopause. While a suite of observations provides significant information on the spatial and temporal distribution of tropospheric ozone, observational gaps make it necessary to use global atmospheric chemistry models to synthesize our understanding of the processes and variables that control tropospheric ozone abundance and its variability. Models facilitate the interpretation of the observations and allow us to make projections of future tropospheric ozone and trace gas distributions for different anthropogenic or natural perturbations. This paper assesses the skill of current-generation global atmospheric chemistry models in simulating the observed present-day tropospheric ozone distribution, variability, and trends. Drawing upon the results of recent international multi-model intercomparisons and using a range of model evaluation techniques, we demonstrate that global chemistry models are broadly skillful in capturing the spatio-temporal variations of tropospheric ozone over the seasonal cycle, for extreme pollution episodes, and changes over interannual to decadal periods. However, models are consistently biased high in the northern hemisphere and biased low in the southern hemisphere, throughout the depth of the troposphere, and are unable to replicate particular metrics that define the longer term trends in tropospheric ozone as derived from some background sites. When the models compare unfavorably against observations, we discuss the potential causes of model biases and propose directions for future developments, including improved evaluations that may be able to better diagnose the root cause of the model-observation disparity. Overall, model results should be approached critically, including determining whether the model performance is acceptable for the problem being addressed, whether biases can be tolerated or corrected, whether the model is appropriately constituted, and whether there is a way to satisfactorily quantify the uncertainty.
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 06-2012
Publisher: American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS)
Date: 10-02-2023
Abstract: Rhabdomyosarcoma (RMS) is a group of pediatric cancers with features of developing skeletal muscle. The cellular hierarchy and mechanisms leading to developmental arrest remain elusive. Here, we combined single-cell RNA sequencing, mass cytometry, and high-content imaging to resolve intratumoral heterogeneity of patient-derived primary RMS cultures. We show that the aggressive alveolar RMS (aRMS) subtype contains plastic muscle stem-like cells and cycling progenitors that drive tumor growth, and a subpopulation of differentiated cells that lost its proliferative potential and correlates with better outcomes. While chemotherapy eliminates cycling progenitors, it enriches aRMS for muscle stem-like cells. We screened for drugs hijacking aRMS toward clinically favorable subpopulations and identified a combination of RAF and MEK inhibitors that potently induces myogenic differentiation and inhibits tumor growth. Overall, our work provides insights into the developmental states underlying aRMS aggressiveness, chemoresistance, and progression and identifies the RAS pathway as a promising therapeutic target.
Publisher: Public Library of Science (PLoS)
Date: 16-06-2022
DOI: 10.1371/JOURNAL.PMED.1004023
Abstract: The provision of different types of mortality metrics (e.g., mortality rate ratios [MRRs] and life expectancy) allows the research community to access a more informative set of health metrics. The aim of this study was to provide a panel of mortality metrics associated with a comprehensive range of disorders and to design a web page to visualize all results. In a population-based cohort of all 7,378,598 persons living in Denmark at some point between 2000 and 2018, we identified in iduals diagnosed at hospitals with 1,803 specific categories of disorders through the International Classification of Diseases-10th Revision (ICD-10) in the National Patient Register. Information on date and cause of death was obtained from the Registry of Causes of Death. For each of the disorders, a panel of epidemiological and mortality metrics was estimated, including incidence rates, age-of-onset distributions, MRRs, and differences in life expectancy (estimated as life years lost [LYLs]). Additionally, we examined models that adjusted for measures of air pollution to explore potential associations with MRRs. We focus on 39 general medical conditions to simplify the presentation of results, which cover 10 broad categories: circulatory, endocrine, pulmonary, gastrointestinal, urogenital, musculoskeletal, hematologic, mental, and neurologic conditions and cancer. A total of 3,676,694 males and 3,701,904 females were followed up for 101.7 million person-years. During the 19-year follow-up period, 1,034,273 persons (14.0%) died. For 37 of the 39 selected medical conditions, mortality rates were larger and life expectancy shorter compared to the Danish general population. For these 37 disorders, MRRs ranged from 1.09 (95% confidence interval [CI]: 1.09 to 1.10) for vision problems to 7.85 (7.77 to 7.93) for chronic liver disease, while LYLs ranged from 0.31 (0.14 to 0.47) years (approximately 16 weeks) for allergy to 17.05 (16.95 to 17.15) years for chronic liver disease. Adjustment for air pollution had very little impact on the estimates however, a limitation of the study is the possibility that the association between the different disorders and mortality could be explained by other underlying factors associated with both the disorder and mortality. In this study, we show estimates of incidence, age of onset, age of death, and mortality metrics (both MRRs and LYLs) for a comprehensive range of disorders. The interactive data visualization site ( tlas ) allows more fine-grained analysis of the link between a range of disorders and key mortality estimates.
Publisher: SAGE Publications
Date: 06-06-2023
DOI: 10.1177/14034948231178076
Abstract: We provide an overview of nationwide environmental data available for Denmark and its linkage potentials to in idual-level records with the aim of promoting research on the potential impact of the local surrounding environment on human health. Researchers in Denmark have unique opportunities for conducting large population-based studies treating the entire Danish population as one big, open and dynamic cohort based on nationally complete population and health registries. So far, most research in this area has utilised in idual- and family-level information to study the clustering of disease in families, comorbidities, risk of, and prognosis after, disease onset, and social gradients in disease risk. Linking environmental data in time and space to in iduals enables novel possibilities for studying the health effects of the social, built and physical environment. We describe the possible linkage between in iduals and their local surrounding environment to establish the exposome – that is, the total environmental exposure of an in idual over their life course. The currently available nationwide longitudinal environmental data in Denmark constitutes a valuable and globally rare asset that can help explore the impact of the exposome on human health.
Publisher: Copernicus GmbH
Date: 06-03-2013
DOI: 10.5194/ACPD-13-5923-2013
Abstract: Abstract. An integrated model system, EVA (Economic Valuation of Air pollution), based on the impact-pathway chain has been developed, to assess the health-related economic externalities of air pollution resulting from specific emission sources or sectors. The model system can be used to support policy-making with respect to emission control. In this study, we apply the EVA system to Europe, and perform a more detailed assessment of past, present, and future health-cost externalities of the total air pollution levels in Europe (including both natural and anthropogenic sources), represented by the years 2000, 2007, 2011, and 2020. We also assess the contribution to the health-related external costs from international ship traffic with special attention to the international ship traffic in the Baltic and North Seas, since special regulatory actions on sulphur emissions, called SECA (sulphur emission control area), have been introduced in these areas,. We conclude that despite efficient regulatory actions in Europe in recent decades, air pollution still constitutes a serious problem to human health, hence the related external costs are considerable. The total health-related external costs for the whole of Europe is estimated at 803 bn Euro yr−1 for the year 2000, decreasing to 537 bn Euro yr−1 in the year 2020. We estimate the total number of premature deaths in Europe in the year 2000 due to air pollution to be around 680 000 yr−1, decreasing to approximately 450 000 in the year 2020. The contribution from international ship traffic in the Northern Hemisphere was estimated to 7% of the total health-related external costs in Europe in the year 2000, increasing to 12% in the year 2020. In contrast, the contribution from international ship traffic in the Baltic Sea and the North Sea decreases 36% due to the regulatory efforts of reducing sulphur emissions from ship traffic in SECA. Introducing this regulatory instrument for all international ship traffic in the Northern Hemisphere, or at least in areas close to Europe, would have a significant positive impact on human health in Europe.
Publisher: Copernicus GmbH
Date: 15-06-2015
Abstract: Abstract. The Danish Eulerian Hemispheric Model (DEHM) was applied to investigate how projected climate changes will affect the atmospheric transport of 13 persistent organic pollutants (POPs) to the Arctic and their environmental fate within the Arctic. Three sets of simulations were performed, one with present day emissions and initial environmental concentrations from a 20-year spin-up simulation, one with present day emissions and with initial environmental concentrations set to zero and one without emissions but with initial environmental concentrations from the 20-year spin-up simulation. Each set of simulations consisted of two 10-year time slices representing the present (1990–2000) and future (2090–2100) climate conditions. DEHM was driven using meteorological input from the global circulation model, ECHAM/MPI-OM, simulating the SRES (Special Report on Emissions Scenarios) A1B climate scenario. Under the applied climate and emission scenarios, the total mass of all compounds was predicted to be up to 55 % lower across the Northern Hemisphere at the end of the 2090s than in the 1990s. The mass of HCHs within the Arctic was predicted to be up to 38 % higher, whereas the change in mass of the PCBs was predicted to range from 38 % lower to 17 % higher depending on the congener and the applied initial environmental concentrations. The results of this study also indicate that contaminants with no or a short emission history will be more rapidly transported to and build up in the arctic environment in a future warmer climate. The process that dominates the environmental behaviour of POPs in the Arctic under a future warmer climate scenario is the shift in mass of POPs from the surface media to the atmosphere induced by the higher mean temperature. This is to some degree counteracted by higher degradation rates also following the higher mean temperature. The more dominant of these two processes depends on the physical-chemical properties of the compounds. Previous model studies have predicted that the effect of a changed climate on the transport of POPs to the Arctic is moderate relative to the effect of proposed changes in emissions, which is confirmed in this study. However, the model studies do not agree on whether climate change acts to reduce or increase environmental concentrations of POPs in the Arctic, and further work is needed to resolve this matter.
Publisher: Copernicus GmbH
Date: 12-08-2013
Abstract: Abstract. An integrated model system, EVA (Economic Valuation of Air pollution), based on the impact-pathway chain has been developed to assess the health-related economic externalities of air pollution resulting from specific emission sources or sectors. The model system can be used to support policy-making with respect to emission control. In this study, we apply the EVA system to Europe, and perform a more detailed assessment of past, present, and future health-cost externalities of the total air pollution levels in Europe (including both natural and anthropogenic sources), represented by the years 2000, 2007, 2011, and 2020. We also assess the contribution to the health-related external costs from international ship traffic with special attention to the international ship traffic in the Baltic and North seas, since special regulatory actions on sulfur emissions, called SECA (sulfur emission control area), have been introduced in these areas. We conclude that, despite efficient regulatory actions in Europe in recent decades, air pollution still constitutes a serious problem for human health. Hence the related external costs are considerable. The total health-related external costs for the whole of Europe are estimated at 803 bn euros yr−1 for the year 2000, decreasing to 537 bn euros yr−1 in the year 2020. We estimate the total number of premature deaths in Europe in the year 2000 due to air pollution to be around 680 000 yr−1, decreasing to approximately 450 000 in the year 2020. The contribution from international ship traffic in the Northern Hemisphere was estimated to 7% of the total health-related external costs in Europe in the year 2000, increasing to 12% in the year 2020. In contrast, the contribution from international ship traffic in the Baltic Sea and the North Sea decreases 36% due to the regulatory efforts of reducing sulfur emissions from ship traffic in SECA. Introducing this regulatory instrument for all international ship traffic in the Northern Hemisphere, or at least in areas close to Europe, would have a significant positive impact on human health in Europe.
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 10-2020
Publisher: American Geophysical Union (AGU)
Date: 08-2008
DOI: 10.1029/2007GB003050
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 06-11-2021
DOI: 10.1186/S12940-021-00802-2
Abstract: Road traffic noise has been linked to increased risk of ischemic heart disease, yet evidence on stroke shows mixed results. We examine the association between long-term exposure to road traffic noise and incidence of stroke, overall and by subtype (ischemic or hemorrhagic), after adjustment for air pollution. Twenty-five thousand six hundred and sixty female nurses from the Danish Nurse Cohort recruited in 1993 or 1999 were followed for stroke-related first-ever hospital contact until December 31st, 2014. Full residential address histories since 1970 were obtained and annual means of road traffic noise (L den [dB]) and air pollutants (particulate matter with diameter 2.5 μm and 10 μm [PM 2.5 and PM 10 ], nitrogen dioxide [NO 2 ], nitrogen oxides [NOx]) were determined using validated models. Time-varying Cox regression models were used to estimate hazard ratios (HR) (95% confidence intervals [CI]) for the associations of one-, three-, and 23-year running means of L den preceding stroke (all, ischemic or hemorrhagic), adjusting for stroke risk factors and air pollutants. The World Health Organization and the Danish government’s maximum exposure recommendations of 53 and 58 dB, respectively, were explored as potential L den thresholds. Of 25,660 nurses, 1237 developed their first stroke (1089 ischemic, 148 hemorrhagic) during 16 years mean follow-up. For associations between a 1-year mean of L den and overall stroke incidence, the estimated HR (95% CI) in the fully adjusted model was 1.06 (0.98–1.14) per 10 dB, which attenuated to 1.01 (0.93–1.09) and 1.00 (0.91–1.09) in models further adjusted for PM 2.5 or NO 2 , respectively. Associations for other exposure periods or separately for ischemic or hemorrhagic stroke were similar. There was no evidence of a threshold association between L den and stroke. Long-term exposure to road traffic noise was suggestively positively associated with the risk of overall stroke, although not after adjusting for air pollution.
Publisher: American Geophysical Union (AGU)
Date: 26-11-2008
DOI: 10.1029/2007GB003081
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 09-2020
Publisher: Copernicus GmbH
Date: 12-08-2013
Abstract: Abstract. We have developed an integrated model system, EVA (Economic Valuation of Air pollution), based on the impact-pathway chain, to assess the health-related economic externalities of air pollution resulting from specific emission sources or sectors, which can be used to support policy-making with respect to emission control. Central for the system is a newly developed tagging method capable of calculating the contribution from a specific emission source or sector to the overall air pollution levels, taking into account the non-linear atmospheric chemistry. The main objective of this work is to identify the anthropogenic emission sources in Europe and Denmark that contribute the most to human health impacts. In this study, we applied the EVA system to Europe and Denmark, with a detailed analysis of health-related external costs from the ten major emission sectors and their relative contributions. The paper contains a thorough description of the EVA system, the main results from the assessment of the main contributors and a discussion of the most important atmospheric chemical reactions relevant for interpreting the results. The main conclusion from the analysis is that the major contributors to health-related external costs are major power production, agriculture, road traffic, and non-industrial domestic combustion, including wood combustion. We conclude that when regulating the emissions of ammonia from the agricultural sector, both the impacts on nature and on human health should be taken into account. This study confirms that air pollution constitutes a serious problem for human health and that the related external costs are considerable. The results in this work emphasize the importance of defining the right questions in the decision-making process. The results from assessing the impacts from each emission sector depend clearly on the assumption that the other emission sectors are not changed, especially emissions changing concentrations of atmospheric OH and therefore lifetimes of other chemical species.
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 07-2021
Publisher: European Respiratory Society (ERS)
Date: 13-05-2021
DOI: 10.1183/13993003.04594-2020
Abstract: While air pollution has been linked to the development of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), evidence on the role of environmental noise is just emerging. We examined the associations of long-term exposure to air pollution and road traffic noise with COPD incidence. We defined COPD incidence for 24 538 female nurses from the Danish Nurse Cohort (age years) as the first hospital contact between baseline (1993 or 1999) and 2015. We estimated residential annual mean concentrations of particulate matter with an aerodynamic diameter .5 µm (PM 2.5 ) since 1990 and nitrogen dioxide (NO 2 ) since 1970 using the Danish Eulerian Hemispheric Model/Urban Background Model/Air Geographic Information System modelling system, and road traffic noise (L den ) since 1970 using the Nord2000 model. Time-varying Cox regression models were applied to assess the associations of air pollution and road traffic noise with COPD incidence. 977 nurses developed COPD during a mean of 18.6 years’ follow-up. We observed associations with COPD for all three exposures with HRs and 95% CIs of 1.19 (1.01–1.41) per 6.26 µg·m −3 for PM 2.5 , 1.13 (1.05–1.20) per 8.19 µg·m −3 for NO 2 and 1.15 (1.06–1.25) per 10 dB for L den . Associations with NO 2 and L den attenuated slightly after mutual adjustment, but were robust to adjustment for PM 2.5 . Associations with PM 2.5 were attenuated to null after adjustment for either NO 2 or L den . No potential interaction effect was observed between air pollutants and noise. Long-term exposure to air pollution, especially traffic-related NO 2 , and to road traffic noise were independently associated with COPD.
Location: United States of America
Location: United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland
Location: United States of America
No related grants have been discovered for Camilla Geels.