Chen, Zhao-YuePetetin, HervéMéndez Turrubiates, Raúl FernandoAchebak, HichamPérez García-Pando, CarlosBallester, Joan2024-07-022024-07-022024Chen ZY, Petetin H, Méndez Turrubiates RF, Achebak H, Pérez García-Pando C, Ballester J. Population exposure to multiple air pollutants and its compound episodes in Europe. Nat Commun. 2024 Mar 13;15(1):2094. DOI: 10.1038/s41467-024-46103-32041-1723http://hdl.handle.net/10230/60632Air pollution remains as a substantial health problem, particularly regarding the combined health risks arising from simultaneous exposure to multiple air pollutants. However, understanding these combined exposure events over long periods has been hindered by sparse and temporally inconsistent monitoring data. Here we analyze daily ambient PM2.5, PM10, NO2 and O3 concentrations at a 0.1-degree resolution during 2003-2019 across 1426 contiguous regions in 35 European countries, representing 543 million people. We find that PM10 levels decline by 2.72% annually, followed by NO2 (2.45%) and PM2.5 (1.72%). In contrast, O3 increase by 0.58% in southern Europe, leading to a surge in unclean air days. Despite air quality advances, 86.3% of Europeans experience at least one compound event day per year, especially for PM2.5-NO2 and PM2.5-O3. We highlight the improvements in air quality control but emphasize the need for targeted measures addressing specific pollutants and their compound events, particularly amidst rising temperatures.application/pdfeng© The Author(s) 2024. Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.info:eu-repo/semantics/articlehttp://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41467-024-46103-3Environmental impactRisk factorsinfo:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess