In this podcast, RMD Open's Social Media Advisor, Dr. Paul Studenic, speaks to Dr. Giovanni Adami, from Universita degli Studi di Verona, Italy, about his population-based cohort study evaluating air pollution-associated risk of developing an immune-mediated disease. By using an Italian-wide patient-dataset, initially designed for fracture risk assessment in women in combination with data for air-quality control stations across Italy, he presents results indicating that long-term exposure to air pollution coincides with a higher risk of developing autoimmune diseases.