This is the article that I looked at: Air pollution linked to ‘extremely high mortality’ in people with mental disorders
For my first point I chose a tweet that directly affected me personally because it was about the air quality of my home country, Hong Kong. After reading the title I was immediately drawn to the article. I’ve lived in Hong Kong for about 8 years now. Ever since I moved there when I was little my whole family was affected by the poor air quality. My soccer and field hockey practices were constantly being cancelled or moved indoors because of the extreme pollution that was in the air that traveled south from Mainland China.
Over the past ten years researchers have recorded more than 284,000 deaths among people with mental illness. Those illnesses include bipolar, depression, schizophrenia and dementia. Researchers have formed a hypothesis claiming that pollutants can trigger a part in the brain and result in high mortality. There a term called “haze days” where the thick pollution the air is visible to the eye resulting in a grey smog in the air. Along with grey skies the weather is dry with low winds. Lin Yang, a member of the research team at Hong Kong Polytechnic University claimed “haze days are likely to trigger an acute depression response in people”.
I can agree with their hypothesis. Weather is able to affect peoples moods significantly. When its sunny and warm people are normally happy. When the weather is grey and smoggy it can be upsetting to people. It makes complete sense that weather and pollution can affect those with mental disabilities even more. My overall mood for the day is based on what it’s like outside. I remember when I lived in Hong Kong if the pollution was terrible and something was cancelled I would be very upset. I am very interested to continue learning and reading about this topic because it affects me very personally. The fact that factories in China produce so much pollution that people are dying, is a clear red flag to reduce pollution immediately.
