ArticleGeoHealth2021
Quantifying the Health Benefits of Face Masks and Respirators to Mitigate Exposure to Severe Air Pollution.
Article in GeoHealth, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 34 papers, 3 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
34 citing papers in PubMed, 3 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.
- Masks and respirators for prevention of respiratory infections: a state of the science review.Clinical microbiology reviews · 2024Pooled it
- Health Effects of Wildfire Smoke Exposure.Annual review of medicine · 2024Pooled it
- Indirect positive health outcomes of COVID-19: a systematic review.Public health · 2023Pooled it
- Bedroom Air Filtration and Home Blood Pressures of Older Adults Living in a Residential Facility.Journal of clinical hypertension (Greenwich, Conn.) · 2026Trial
- Spatiotemporal Trends in Mortality Burden from Suicide Associated with Short-Term Exposures to PMEnvironment & health (Washington, D.C.) · 2026Article
- Narrative review of wildfire smoke interventions: considering the unique vulnerabilities of children and pregnant individuals.Journal of exposure science & environmental epidemiology · 2026Review
- Current Issues Related to Combustion Byproducts & Human Health: A Summary of the 18th International PIC Congress.Environment & health (Washington, D.C.) · 2026Review
- Exploring the nexus between particulate matter and infertility: Multiple mechanistic insights and potential control strategies.iScience · 2026Review
- Electrospun biodegradable polycaprolactone filter media for filtering facepiece respirators.Journal of materials science. Polymers · 2026Article
- Comparative Assessment of Viral Load Retention in Surgical and Fabric Masks Worn by COVID-19 Patients.Viruses · 2025Article
- Short-term exposure to air pollution and risk of ischemic stroke requiring intravenous thrombolysis: a population-level analysis in Poland from the EP-PARTICLES study.Environmental health : a global access science source · 2025Article
- Variation in the fitted filtration efficiency of disposable face masks by sex.Journal of exposure science & environmental epidemiology · 2025Article
- Elevated exposure to air pollutants accelerates primary glomerular disease progression.Clinical kidney journal · 2025Review
- World Trade Center response activities and cognitive health: A moderated mediation study of the role of surgical/nuisance dust mask usage.Neurotoxicology · 2025Article
- Perceptions of and Responses to Wildfire Smoke Among New York State Residents: A Cross-Sectional Study.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2025Article
- Perceived-air pollution and self-reported health status: a study on air pollution-prone urban area of Bangladesh.Frontiers in public health · 2025Article
- Association between long-term PMEnvironmental monitoring and assessment · 2024Article
- Evolution of Reactive Organic Compounds and Their Potential Health Risk in Wildfire Smoke.Environmental science & technology · 2024Article
- The mask paradox between perception of discomfort and reality of physiological effects in healthy college students in China: a panel study.BMC public health · 2024Article
- The role of pathologists in the diagnosis of occupational lung diseases: an expert opinion of the European Society of Pathology Pulmonary Pathology Working Group.Virchows Archiv : an international journal of pathology · 2024Review
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
6 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Familiarity with the use of face coverings to reduce the risk of respiratory disease has increased during the coronavirus pandemic; however, recommendations for their use outside of the pandemic remains limited. Here, we develop a modeling framework to quantify the potential health benefits of wearing a face covering or respirator to mitigate exposure to particulate air pollution. This framework accounts for the wide range of available face coverings and respirators, fit factors and efficacy, air pollution characteristics, and exposure-response data. Our modeling shows that N95 respirators offer robust protection against different sources of particulate matter, reducing exposure by more than a factor of 14 when worn with a leak rate of 5%. Synthetic-fiber masks offer less protection with a strong dependence on aerosol size distribution (protection factors ranging from 4.4 to 2.2), while natural-fiber and surgical masks offer reductions in the exposure of 1.9 and 1.7, respectively. To assess the ability of face coverings to provide population-level health benefits to wildfire smoke, we perform a case study for the 2012 Washington state fire season. Our models suggest that although natural-fiber masks offer minor reductions in respiratory hospitalizations attributable to smoke (2%-11%) due to limited filtration efficiency, N95 respirators and to a lesser extent surgical and synthetic-fiber masks may lead to notable reductions in smoke-attributable hospitalizations (22%-39%, 9%-24%, and 7%-18%, respectively). The filtration efficiency, bypass rate, and compliance rate (fraction of time and population wearing the device) are the key factors governing exposure reduction potential and health benefits during severe wildfire smoke events.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.