Environmental Exposures and Stroke Risk: Converging Pathways, Unequal Burdens, and Prevention Opportunities
Abstract
Purpose of review: To synthesize recent evidence on how environmental exposures influence stroke risk, with emphasis on air pollution, thermal stress, circadian and occupational disruption, built and social environments, and selected toxicants.
Recent findings: Long-term and episodic air pollution, especially fine particulate matter with aerodynamic diameter ≤ 2.5 μm (PM₂.₅) and wildfire smoke, remain most consistently associated with stroke risk. Extreme heat combined with heat-humidity metrics is emerging as an important acute stroke trigger. Noise, artificial light at night, shift work, and long working hours show smaller but plausible associations, while greener and more walkable environments may be modestly protective. Social and structural disadvantage clusters, multiple exposures and inequities play an integrated role in risk and prevention. Environmental determinants are increasingly relevant to stroke risk. The strongest current links are realted to pollution, heat, sleep, and work disruption, as well as environmental inequity. Future research should move beyond single-exposure models toward combined-exposure as well as intervention-focused approaches.
Read the paper
Related studies
- Green Chemistry: A Framework for a Sustainable Future
- Nano/micro-plastic, an invisible threat getting into the brain
- Emerging contaminants antibiotic resistance genes and microplastics in the environment: Introduction to 21 review articles published in CREST during 2018–2022
- Water Resources and Sustainable Development
- Nano- and microplastics in the workplace
- Water Enclosure and World-Literature: New Perspectives on Hydro-Power and World-Ecology
Go deeper in Evidence Hub
Evidence Hub adds a study data sheet (design, sample size, evidence level, key numbers), an AI summary and a chat grounded in the paper's text.