Ambient air pollution in China poses a multifaceted health threat to outdoor physical activity

Abstract

While outdoor physical activity has been shown to promote health and well-being,1 ,2 exercising in environments with high levels of air pollution can increase the risk of health problems ranging from asthma attacks to heart or lung pathologies.3 ,4 The interaction of these two phenomena is of specific significance in China, where outdoor physical activity has been a traditional practice but where rapid industrialisation has led to major degradation of the environment. This situation raises the spectre of an emergent major public health crisis in the most populous country in the world.