Dust storms and sandy dust events originating in arid and semi-arid areas can transport particulate material, pollutants, and potential transport long distances from their sources. Exposure to desert dust particles is generally acknowledged to endanger human health. However, most studies have examined anthropogenic particulate sources, with few studies considering contributions from natural desert dust. A systematic literature review was undertaken using the ISI Web of Knowledge and PubMed databases with the objective of identifying all studies presenting results on the potential health impact from desert dust particles across the world.

This review reveals an imbalance between the areas most exposed to dust and the areas most studied in terms of health effects. Among the human health effects of dust storms are mortality and morbidity, arising from respiratory system, circulatory system, and other diseases. We summarize the quantitative results of current scientific health research and possible pathological mechanisms, and describe some of the many challenges related to understanding health effects from exposures to desert dust particles. Overall, for respiratory and circulatory mortality, both positive and negative associations have been reported for PM10 of desert dust, but only a positive relationship was reported between PM2.5–10 and mortality, and a positive relationship was also reported between PM2.5 and human mortality.

Future pathological studies should continue to focus on those mechanisms causing the most harmful effect of desert dust on respiratory and cardiovascular diseases. More attention should also be paid to the association between desert dust and the morbidity of other diseases, such as those affecting the reproductive system and nervous system.

Literature searches were conducted using a combination of two groups of keywords: dust names, as objects; and health effects, as outcomes. The databases used were PubMed, EMBASE, MEDLINE, the ISI Web of Knowledge (Web of Science, which includes the Science Citation Index), and Google Scholar. In searches of the epidemiological literature, the keywords were ((“Dust” OR “Dust event” OR “Desert dust” OR “Dust storm” OR “Sand storm” OR “Kosa” OR “Yellow sand”) AND (“Health effects” OR “Mortality” OR “Morbidity” OR “Respiratory” OR “Cardiovascular” OR “Cardiopulmonary” OR “Pulmonary” OR “Asthma” OR “Rhinitis” OR “Meningitis” OR “Pregnancy” OR “Visit” OR “Admission” OR “Hospital”)). For the pathological literature, the keywords were ((“Dust” OR “Dust event” OR “Desert dust” OR “Dust storm” OR “Sand dust”) AND (“Vivo” OR “Vitro” OR “Cell” OR “Tissue” OR “Organ” OR “Toxicity” OR “Mice” OR “Murine” OR “Mouse” OR “Rat” OR “Microorganism” OR “Pathogen” OR “Bacteria” OR “Fungi” OR “Pollen” OR “Spore” OR “Virus”)) without restrictions on publication type or publication date. The study collection included all published papers until October 2014, so that recent articles in relevant journals were identified.
All papers returned by the search (N = 1813) were evaluated. Studies concerning health effects of natural desert dust from epidemiology, pathophysiology, or animal experiments were all included. Highly specialized articles about microorganisms of desert dust were also accepted. Only studies on dust from volcanic or anthropogenic sources (such as mining dust or stone dust) were excluded. In total 103 and 72 individual relevant articles met our inclusion criteria for epidemiological and pathological studies, respectively.