Air pollution may affect mental health later in life: Study

In a study of women aged 80 years and older, published in the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society, living in locations with higher exposure to air pollution was associated with increased depressive symptoms.

Results also suggested that depressive symptoms might play a role in linking long-term air pollution exposure to memory decline more than 10 years after the exposure.

According to India.com, “This is the first study showing how air pollution exposures affect depressive symptoms as well as the interrelationship between the symptoms and subsequent memory decline that had not been found in older people aged less than 80 years,” said study lead author Andrew Petkus from the University of Southern California in the US .