Chronic exposure to odorous chemicals in residential areas and effects on human psychosocial health: Dose–response relationships

Abstract

Perceived air pollution, including environmental odor pollution, is known to be an environmental stressor that affects individuals' psychosocial health and well-being. However, very few studies have been able to quantify exposure–response associations based on individual-specific residential exposures to a proxy gas and to examine the mechanisms underlying these associations. In this study, individual-specific exposures in non-urban residential environments during 2005–2010 on a gas released from animal biodegradable wastes (ammonia, NH3) were calculated by the Danish Eulerian long-range transport model and the local-scale transport deposition model. We used binomial and multinomial logistic regression and mediation analyses to examine the associations between average exposures and questionnaire-based data on psychosocial responses, after controlling for person-specific covariates. About 45% of the respondents were annoyed by residential odor pollution. Exposures were associated with annoyance (adjusted odds ratio [ORadj]=3.54, 95% confidence interval [CI]=2.33–5.39), health risk perception (ORadj=4.94; 95% CI=1.95–12.5) and behavioral interference (ORadj=3.28; 95% CI=1.77–6.11), for each unit increase in loge(NH3 exposure). Annoyance was a strong mediator in exposure–behavior interference and exposure–health risk perception relationships (81% and 44% mediation, respectively). Health risk perception did not play a mediating role in exposure–annoyance or exposure–behavioral interference relationships. This is the first study to provide a quantitative estimation of the dose–response associations between ambient NH3 exposures and psychosocial effects caused by odor pollution in non-urban residential outdoor environments. It further shows that these effects are both direct and mediated by other psychosocial responses. The results support the use of NH3 as a proxy gas of air pollution from animal biodegradable wastes in epidemiologic studies.