The Effect of Fine and Coarse Particulate Air Pollution on Mortality: A National Analysis

By A. Zanobetti, Jasmine Schwartz. Environmental Health Perspectives, 2009

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Background Although many studies have examined the effects of air pollution on mortality, data limitations have resulted in fewer studies of both particulate matter with an aerodynamic diameter of ≤ 2.5 μm (PM2.5; fine particles) and of coarse particles (particles with an aerodynamic diameter > 2.5 and < 10 μm; PM coarse). We conducted a national, multicity time-series study of the acute effect of PM2.5 and PM coarse on the increased risk of death for all causes, cardiovascular disease (CVD), myocardial infarction (MI), stroke, and respiratory mortality for the years 1999–2005. Method We applied a city- and season-specific Poisson regression in 112 U.S. cities to examine the association of mean (day of death and previous day) PM2.5 and PM coarse with daily deaths. We combined the city-specific estimates using a random effects approach, in total, by season and by region. Results We found a 0.98% increase [95% confidence interval (CI), 0.75–1.22] in total mortality, a 0.85% increase (95% CI, 0.46–1.24) in CVD, a 1.18% increase (95% CI, 0.48–1.89) in MI, a 1.78% increase (95% CI, 0.96–2.62) in stroke, and a 1.68% increase (95% CI, 1.04–2.33) in respiratory deaths for a 10-μg/m3 increase in 2-day averaged PM2.5. The effects were higher in spring. For PM coarse, we found significant but smaller increases for all causes analyzed. Conclusions We conclude that our analysis showed an increased risk of mortality for all and specific causes associated with PM2.5, and the risks are higher than what was previously observed for PM10. In addition, coarse particles are also associated with more deaths.

Subfields: Atmospheric Science, Global and Planetary Change, Health, Toxicology and Mutagenesis

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/395bde8b1804357742bd3bbd90ab1c3684568779

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Citations in the corpus

Silk nanofibers as high efficient and lightweight air filter (2016, neutral): “Particulate matter (PM) air pollution is a worldwide problem, which poses a serious threat to human health [1–3].”
Association of Short-term Exposure to Air Pollution With Mortality in Older Adults (2017, methodology): “The robustness of the analysis results was assessed with respect to (1) choosing the degrees of freedom used for the confounding adjustment for temperature, (2) using lag 01 day exposure as the exposure metric, (3) the definition of warm season, and (4) using only air pollution measurements from the”
Main air pollutants and myocardial infarction: a systematic review and meta-analysis. (2012, background): “The study population was predominantly the general population, with the exception of a few studies that focused on elderly individuals.(8,11,19,31,45) Lag expression varied from a specific day preceding the on-”
Clearing the Air: A Review of the Effects of Particulate Matter Air Pollution on Human Health (2011, neutral): “[79] 2009 PM2.”
Attributing health effects to apportioned components and sources of particulate matter: An evaluation of collective results (2011, result): “This is consistent with the large number of laboratory studies that have demonstrated compositional variability in PM toxicity and epidemiologic studies that portray the regional heterogeneity in PM-related health effects (Zanobetti and Schwartz, 2009; Bell et al., 2008).”
Air pollution and public health: emerging hazards and improved understanding of risk (2015, background): “2009) and cardiovascular (Delfino et al. 2010; Ito et al. 2011; Kim et al. 2012; Son et al. 2012; Zanobetti and Schwartz 2009) endpoints.”