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Maddie Baker

Dr. Steffen Guenzel

ENC 1102

October 12, 2020

Research Dossier

Dossier Introduction

The topic I have chosen for my research project this semester is the connection between high

levels of air pollution and the effects it can have of those who can contracted COVID-19. I chose

this topic because I’m currently majoring in chemistry, but I also have always had an interest in

the environment and the atmosphere, so this topic will give me a little of both worlds. I also have

a strong interest in many other sciences as well, such as biology, which ties into the research a

little bit as well. This research assignment will help me to further my knowledge into the effects

of atmospheric conditions that include air pollution, and how they can connect to biological

conditions. It will also help me to familiarize myself with the way that research papers are

written in the chemical field which can help me with future research assignments within my field

of study.

I have always had a strange draw toward anything related to science and I’m not exactly sure

why. Its always been one of those subjects that just clicks for me and I love expanding my

knowledge on the subject. Out of all the science courses I have taken throughout my life,

chemistry and environmental science have been my two favorite classes. I am a very analytical

person and need to know how everything works, even from an atomic level so that is where my
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love for chemistry comes from. I think that my love for environmental sciences has stemmed

from my interest in chemistry because they work similarly, but I also have always had an interest

in meteorology and the atmosphere which is mixed together by environment science.

Normally, places that have already high levels of air pollution, didn’t suddenly reach those

levels; they have been created over many years of poor control of emissions (however there are

exceptions such as large wildfires). Poor air quality can have a serious effect on the respiratory

system especially with those who have pre-existing conditions such as asthma. Being that

COVID-19 is a virus that attacks the respiratory system, if someone is already being affected by

air pollution in the area they are living in, then the virus is more likely to have a more serious

effect on the person. Up to this point, my research has proved to support my argument given the

data.

During my research, I have, and hope to find strong evidence that supports my claim in order to

raise awareness about the dangers of air pollution. I feel like most of the time, people only think

about air pollution causing harm to our ecosystems and our planet, and not think about the

effects it can have on humans. My ultimate goal is to raise awareness about the issues that air

pollution can cause, and although I won’t be discussing the problems it can cause to the Earth,

maybe if people know the dangers it can cause to them then they might be more willing to make

a change.

Research Proposal

Subject: Relationship Between COVID-19 and Air Quality

Topic Description: This research project is an inquiry into how the levels of air pollution in

certain areas, affect the number of severe/fatal COVID-19 cases in that same area. Air pollution
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can cause damage to the respiratory systems in people and COVID-19 is a disease that attacks

the respiratory system. In my research, I will be looking to find a correlation between high levels

of air pollution and severe cases of COVID-19. Specifically, I will be looking at data from Italy,

China, and Japan, since these three countries have the most studies completed that are related to

my topic. The studies compare the air pollution to COVID-cases in rural and urban cities within

those three countries.

Documentation Style: I will be using MLA documentation style in my paper.

Purpose: My purpose in writing this paper is to find a connection between poor air quality and a

higher rate of severe/fatal cases of COVID-19. I am currently majoring in chemistry, and I will

be looking into specific chemicals and their abundance (such as NOx gases) and the effect they

have on people who contract the virus. This doubles as evidence as to why air pollution is such a

large issue in our world at the moment and can affect those with any type of respiratory

problems.

Intended audience: Technically, my audience will be those who are currently in my class.

However, if this were to go any further, my audience would be more of the general public. I

would be informing them on the dangers of poor air quality and how that can cause a harsher

reaction to the virus. Teaching people the dangers of having such poor air quality may cause

people to be motivated to take steps to contribute to improving air quality throughout the world.

Research question/ Preliminary Thesis/ Argument: Urban areas have higher numbers of

severe/fatal COVID-19 cases due to the fact that there is much more air pollution in urban areas.

Types of Research Areas: During my research, I will most likely only be using scholarly and

internet research (I may be misunderstanding this so if I am, my apologies). I will not be able to
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conduct field research on my own for this study because I don’t have the tools to be able to

examine the amount of pollution in the air, especially throughout different parts of the world. I

would definitely be able to find studies and research on the internet or written by scholars that

explains the relationship between high air pollution and having respiratory problems/weakness.

Keywords: COVID-19, Air pollution, Respiratory Health

Calendar

10/19: Final Research 11/12: Final Draft 12/3: Final Draft

Dossier Rhetorical Analysis Argumentative

Research Paper
10/22: Rhetorical 11/16: Workshop 12/10: E-Portfolios

Analysis 2 Draft 1 Research and TED Talk

Paper Presentations
10/26: Rhetorical 11/17: Peer-review 12/11: Feedback to

Analysis 3 Workshop Draft 1 Research

Research paper and Presentations

Workshop Draft 2

Research paper
10/29: Reverse 11/23: Workshop

Outline Draft 3 Research

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Paper
11/2: Revision 11/25: Peer-Review

Strategies of Workshop Draft 3

Experienced Adult Research Paper

Writers
11/5: Workshop 11/26: Peer-Review

Draft Rhetorical Workshop Draft Self-

Analysis Assessment

/Reflection
11/9: Peer-Review 11/30: Course

Workshop 2 and Evaluation and

Pitch your TED Talk Workshop Draft Self-

assessment/Reflection

Annotated Bibliography

Azuma, K.; Kagi, N.; Kim, H.; Hayashi, M. Impact of Climate and Ambient Air Pollution on the

Epidemic Growth during COVID-19 Outbreak in Japan. Environ. Res. 2020, 190,

110042, (Accessed Oct 13, 2020).

Content: This is study done in Japan that found a correlation between high air pollution and

severe cases of COVID-19.

Author: Kenichi Azuma is a part of the Department of Environmental Medicine and Behavioral

Science in Osakasayama, Japan. Naoki Kagi is a part of the School of Environment and Society

at the Tokyo Institute of Technology in Tokyo, Japan. Hoon Kim is a part of the Nationial

Institute of Public Health in Wako, Japan.

BEAM: This was a research study and did not contain any bias.
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Coker, E.; Cavalli, L.; Fabrizi, E.; Guastella, G.; Lippo, E.; Parisi, M.; Pontarollo, N.; Rizzati,

M.; Vergalli, S. The Effects of Air Pollution on COVID-19 Related Mortality in

Northern Italy, June 1, 2020. doi:10.2307/resrep25159 (Accessed Oct 13, 2020).

Content: This is a study on the effect of air pollution on COVID-19 in Northern Italy. The

findings of this study show that there was a positive correlation between a higher level of air

pollution and more severe cases of COVID-19 in the area.

Author: The majority of the authors in this study are based in Italy and work with various

universities within the country. Eric Coker is an exception, working with the University of

Florida in Gainesville, Florida with the College of Public Health.

BEAM: This study was not biased, it was simply completing research and publishing the data

that they had found from that research.

Costello, A. P.; Huber, A. J.; MacCormick, A. H.; Goldman, A. B. Why air pollution is linked to

severe cases of COVID-19. https://scopeblog.stanford.edu/2020/07/17/why-air-pollution-

is-linked-to-severe-cases-of-covid-19/ (accessed Oct 13, 2020).

Content: The article published by Stanford University is essentially an overview of the topic, but

is not in itself a study. The article summarizes the finding of different studies that show a

correlation between higher levels of air pollution, and higher levels of COVID-19 cases/more

severe cases.

Author: Paul Costello is the chief communications officer at the Stanford School of Medicine
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BEAM: The article does not contain much bias since it is simply an overview of other studies.

There is not content related to anything about how COVID-19 should be handled or anything

along those lines, it is just a matter of stating data found from studies.

Friedman, L. New Research Links Air Pollution to Higher Coronavirus Death Rates. The New

York times. The New York Times April 7, 2020, (Accessed Oct 13, 2020).

Content: This is an article written in the New York Times about multiple studies that have been

done about finding a correlation between air pollution and the number of COVID-19 cases. The

article itself does not conduct and research, but simply discusses the findings from other studies.

Author: Lisa Friedman is an author for the New York Times who commonly discusses the

issues of climate change and other problems facing our atmosphere.

BEAM: This article does have the possibilities of including some sort of bias being that it is in

the New York Times. This newspaper company does tend to include bias within their articles.

This article can be useful in summarizing the general idea that is found in most of the studies I

will include in my research essay.

Li, H.; Xu, X. L.; Dai, D. W.; Huang, Z. Y.; Ma, Z.; Guan, Y. J. Air Pollution and Temperature

Are Associated with Increased COVID-19 Incidence: A Time Series Study; Ed.;

JSTOR, 2020; Vol. 97. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijid.2020.05.076 (Accessed Oct 13, 2020).

Content: This study was conducted in Wuhan and XaioGan, China. The study found a

significant positive correlation between certain air pollutants and higher cases of COVID-19

Authors: All of the authors in this study come from various Chinese Universities.

BEAM: This study is not biased, its goal was to try to find any significance between high levels

of air pollution and the number/severity of COVID-19 cases.

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Lin, S.; Wei, D.; Sun, Y.; Chen, K.; Yang, L.; Liu, B.; Huang, Q.; Paoliello, M. M. B.; Li, H.;

Wu, S. Region-Specific Air Pollutants and Meteorological Parameters Influence COVID-

19: A Study from Mainland China. Ecotoxicol. Environ. Saf. 2020, 204, 111035.

Content: This was a study conducted with data from various urban cities in China that found a

positive correlation between COVID-19 cases and high levels of air pollution.

Author: All of the authors in this study were a part of the Department of Epidemiology and

Health Statistics at the Fujian Medical University in Fuzhou, China.

BEAM: This study did not contain bias. I will be using this study to support my argument.

Lolli, S.; Chen, Y.-C.; Wang, S.-H.; Vivone, G. Impact of Meteorological Conditions and Air

Pollution on COVID-19 Pandemic Transmission in Italy. Sci. Rep. 2020, 10 (1).

https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-020-73197-8 (Accessed Oct 13, 2020).

Content: This was a study conducted in multiple Italian cities to find a correlation between

COVID-19 and air pollution. The researchers studied multiple cities from rural to urban and

found a strong correlation between the higher ari pollution (mainly in urban cities) and

higher/more severe cases of COVID-19.

Author: Simone Lolli is a scientist for the Italian National Research Council and has worked for

and with various American universities. He is experienced in researching atmospheric

conditions.

BEAM: This was a research study and did not contain any bias. I will use the data found in this

study to support my argument.

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Moelling, K.; Broecker, F. Air Microbiome and Pollution: Composition and Potential Effects on

Human Health, Including SARS Coronavirus Infection. J. Environ. Public Health 2020,

2020, 1646943.

Content: This article looks at the relationship between air pollution and COVID-19 in cities such

as New York, Milan, Italy, and Wuhan, China.

Author: Karin Moelling studied at the University of Zurich in the Institute of Medical

Microbiology, and at the Max Plank Institute for Molecular Genetics in Berlin, Germany. Felix

Broecker studied at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in the Department of

Microbiology.

BEAM: This is a research study and does not contain bais. I will use the data from this study to

support my argument.

Setti, L.; Passarini, F.; De Gennaro, G.; Barbieri, P.; Perrone, M. G.; Borelli, M.; Palmisani, J.;

Di Gilio, A.; Torboli, V.; Fontana, F.; Clemente, L.; Pallavicini, A.; Ruscio, M.;

Piscitelli, P.; Miani, A. SARS-Cov-2RNA Found on Particulate Matter of Bergamo in

Northern Italy: First Evidence. Environ. Res. 2020, 188 (109754), 109754.

Content: This is a study done that shows that air pollution will not only affect the severity of

COVID-19, but it can also be found on particulate matter.

Author: The authors in this article are all from various universities in Italy, and from

departments ranging from biology, to life sciences, to lab medicine, and many others.

BEAM: this article does not contain any bias. I will use this study to prove another point of why

air pollution can cause more problems concerning COVID-19, since this study found that
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COVID-19 can be carried on particulate matter, meaning that if there is more air pollution, there

is a greater chance of the virus being stuck to those air particles.

Son, J.-Y.; Fong, K. C.; Heo, S.; Kim, H.; Lim, C. C.; Bell, M. L. Reductions in Mortality

Resulting from Reduced Air Pollution Levels Due to COVID-19 Mitigation

Measures. Sci. Total Environ. 2020, 744 (141012), 141012.

Content: This study shows that reduced air pollution from people quarantining and not going out

as much, has reduced air pollution. In return, the COVID-19 cases have gone down based on the

lower levels of air pollution in those areas (different from results of quarantine).

Author: The authors in this article are all from the Yale School of the Environment at Yale

University.

BEAM: This article does not conatin bias. I will use this study to show that since the levels of air

pollution have lowered and there have been fewer severe cases, that this supports my reasoning

for looking at air pollution as a concerning factor for COVID-19.

Zhu, Y.; Xie, J.; Huang, F.; Cao, L. Association between Short-Term Exposure to Air Pollution

and COVID-19 Infection: Evidence from China. Sci. Total Environ. 2020, 727 (138704),

138704.

Content: This was a study that was conducted in 120 cities in China, and it compared the air

pollution levels to the amount and severity of COVID-19 cases. The study found a positive

correlation between the two.

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Author: The authors of this study were a part of the First Affiliated Hospital of USTC, Division

of Life Sciences and Medicine at the University of Science and Technology of China, in Hefei,

China.

BEAM: This study did not contain bias. I will use the data found to support my argument that

high levels of air pollution can cause an increase of severe cases of COVID-19

Zoran, M. A.; Savastru, R. S.; Savastru, D. M.; Tautan, M. N. Assessing the Relationship

between Surface Levels of PM2.5 and PM10 Particulate Matter Impact on COVID-19 in

Milan, Italy. Sci. Total Environ. 2020, 738 (139825), 139825.

Content: This study was done to look at the different atmospherical conditions that were present

during the time of the COVID-19 outbreak in Milan, Italy. The study found a significant

correlation between high levels of air pollution and higher levels of COVID-19 cases.

Author: All authors are a part of the National Institute of R&D for Optoelectronics in Romania.

BEAM: This was a research study and did not contain any bias. I will use the data found in this

study to support my argument