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Ireland Health Impact

Translate PM2.5 exposure into WHO exceedance and a simple cigarette-equivalent indicator. This pilot covers 16 eligible cities with OpenAQ-derived daily AQI history.

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Ireland health-impact overview

Cigs / day avg
0.4
Berkeley Earth heuristic
Life-years lost / person
0.3
EPIC AQLI coefficient
Cities above WHO annual AQG
100%
annual mean > 5 ug/m3
Cities measured
16
of 20 OpenAQ cities

Same PM2.5. Three standards. Three verdicts.

PM2.5 5 ug/m3
US EPA AQI28
WHO tierAQG
Cigs/day0.2
AQLI0.0 y
PM2.5 10 ug/m3
US EPA AQI53
WHO tierAQG
Cigs/day0.5
AQLI0.5 y
PM2.5 15 ug/m3
US EPA AQI62
WHO tierAQG
Cigs/day0.7
AQLI1.0 y
PM2.5 25 ug/m3
US EPA AQI81
WHO tierIT-4
Cigs/day1.1
AQLI2.0 y

Top 20 cities by cigarette-equivalent exposure

Using Berkeley Earth's 22 ug/m3 = 1 cigarette/day heuristic. Cigarette equivalence is a communication tool, not a clinical diagnosis.

#CityPM2.5Cigs/dayLife-yrs lostAvg AQI
1LimerickLimerick12.2 ug/m30.60.7 y49
2TrimMeath10.9 ug/m30.50.6 y45
3DouglasCork10.6 ug/m30.50.5 y46
4EnniscorthyWexford10.0 ug/m30.50.5 y47
5SligoSligo9.2 ug/m30.40.4 y41
6FinglasDublin8.8 ug/m30.40.4 y42
7DublinLeinster8.3 ug/m30.40.3 y39
8PalmerstonFingal8.3 ug/m30.40.3 y18
9Baile an BhiataighMeath8.2 ug/m30.40.3 y36
10BallyfermotDublin7.7 ug/m30.40.3 y37
11DunlearyDún Laoghaire-Rathdown7.7 ug/m30.40.3 y38
12DublinDublin7.6 ug/m30.30.3 y37
13CarlowCarlow6.8 ug/m30.30.2 y34
14WaterfordWaterford6.7 ug/m30.30.2 y33
15CorkMunster6.5 ug/m30.30.1 y32
16Ros ComáinRoscommon5.6 ug/m30.30.1 y28

Methodology & sources

This page starts with OpenAQ PM2.5 and PM10 measurements mapped to AQI Now cities, then rolls daily city observations into city-level PM2.5 averages and US EPA AQI summaries. Health equivalents are screening indicators: useful for comparing exposure, not a clinical diagnosis.

Cigarette equivalence
22 ug/m3 = 1 cig/day

Muller & Muller, Berkeley Earth (2015), derived from Pope et al. 2002 and cigarette risk factors.

Life-years lost
0.098 y per ug/m3

EPIC Air Quality Life Index coefficient above the WHO annual PM2.5 baseline of 5 ug/m3.

WHO 2021 PM2.5
15 ug/m3 24-hr AQG

WHO tiers shown here use AQG 15, IT-4 25, IT-3 37.5, IT-2 50, IT-1 75 ug/m3.

Methodology

The extractor maps OpenAQ monitoring locations to the nearest AQI Now city in the same country, aggregates PM2.5 and PM10 to daily city averages, and converts those concentrations to US EPA AQI. Country tool pages use only city summaries that satisfy the configured minimum daily coverage threshold.

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