Road traffic pollution just as dangerous as secondhand smoke Recent epidemiological research suggests that near road traffic-related pollution may cause chronic disease, as well as exacerbates related pathologies, implying that the entire “chronic disease progression” should be attributed to air pollution, no matter what the proximate cause was, according to a new research led by Dr. Laura Perez at the Swiss Tropical and Public Health Institute, according to the study’s abstract...continued at the Examiner.