Introduction: Polluted air is the most important public health problem associated with environmental pollution. In Europe, around 90 percent of urban dwellers are exposed to excessive levels of dust particles, nitrogen oxides, ozone and benzene in the outdoor air. Polluted air can be a risk factor for many diseases, such as heart disease, respiratory diseases, metabolic diseases and nervous system diseases. The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that around 4.2 million people die each year from polluted air exposure. Purpose: The purpose of this diploma work is to determine how air pollution mediates as a risk factor for the development of certain diseases and how it affects the health of vulnerable groups of people. It also defines the role of a nurse in treating vulnerable groups of people at the preventive level from the point of view of health protection. Methods: The diploma thesis is written on the basis of a review of Slovenian and foreign literature. Slovenian and foreign articles were obtained from ScienceDirect, PubMed/Medline databases and remote access to the Digital Library of the University of Ljubljana (DiKUL). I reviewed 85 articles with the exclusion criteria and therefore excluded 65 of them according to their abstracts. A total of 20 articles were used in the diploma work. Results: Polluted air includes dust particles, ozone, carbon monoxide, sulphur dioxide, nitrogen dioxide, asbestos, benzene and radon. Discussion and conclusion: The authors of most of these studies report a positive and statistically significant association between exposure to dust particles, ozone, carbon monoxide, sulphur dioxide, nitrogen dioxide and other pollutants in ambient air and respiratory diseases, circulatory diseases, neurological diseases and metabolic diseases. Patients with respiratory and cardiovascular diseases, diabetics, the elderly, children and pregnant women are most at risk. We have found that a nurse is an important link in the human awareness chain and that reducing the impact of polluted air on patients' health can only be achieved in two ways: by striving to remove or reduce the risk factor from the environment or by reducing exposure.
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