Abstract 280: Ambient Air Quality And Cerebrovascular Disease Outcomes Among Older Adults

Abstract

Introduction: Air quality is a major environmental determinant of health, especially among adults living in areas with high levels of air pollution. Given our world’s aging population and increasingly dynamic climate, better understanding the relationship between ambient air quality and cerebrovascular disease outcomes among older adult is increasingly important. Objective: To document the relationship between air quality, as measured by particulate matter (PM 2.5) and cerebrovascular disease outcomes, measured by stroke death rates among older adults in the United States. Methods: The CDC Wonder database was used to retrieve Environmental Protection Agency's Air Quality System annual average ambient concentrations of PM2.5 and National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) stroke death and total cardiovascular death rates by county across the United States. Spearman correlation was used to analyze the relationship between these variables. Results: Nationally, average ambient concentration of PM2.5 ranged from 3 to 19.7 μg/m3 with a mean of 9 μg/m3 ± 1.9 μg/m3 among 3,108 counties reporting data. Particular matter concentrations had a moderately positive relationship with stroke death rates (0.44, p<0.01) and total cardiovascular death rates (0.45, p<0.01) among adults over age 65. Conclusions: Our analysis of ambient air quality and cerebrovascular as well as total cardiovascular death rates demonstrates a moderate correlation between fine particulate matter and poor outcomes. Our data further demonstrates a number of US counties exceed World Health Organization fine particulate matter guidelines. These findings provide compelling evidence for both increased efforts towards improvement of air quality and mitigation strategies to prevent associated negative health outcomes.