Does moving to the location of Marsa increase your chances of catching a respiratory disease?

Abstract

The study conducted was aimed to find out if the location of Marsa; that is situated in the Southern area of the Maltese islands is safe enough to live in. The safety is related to health issues especially those regarded to the respiratory system, this is because this particular location hosts several developments that mainly affect air quality. The dissertation focused on three developments that are the Industrial Zone, the Abattoir and finally but not least the Power Station. Apart from the developments the study also focused on the traffic problem since Marsa is one of the main arteries of traffic. Several questions were asked in the questionnaire to verify if the residents are suffering any consequences because of the emissions. This was done to find out if the developments are generating epidemiological diseases on the Marsa population and if so what is being done to improve air quality. Legislations and Regulations from the EU and from the Maltese Government were listed to state whether they are improving the actual conditions. After all the data and results collected from the activities such as the questionnaire and the on site observations it was possible to accept or reject the dissertation title, which is "Does moving to the location of Marsa increase your chances of catching a respiratory disease"? Apart from the mentioned activities other data was collected, it focused on the past pollutant levels. This was done to show if the concentrations have decreased, kept constant levels or increased by the passing of time. The topic of this study interested me the most because primarily I live nearby the location of Marsa and because it deals with the reality of the existing problems in the southern part of Malta.