Abstract
Short-term exposures to outdoor air pollutants have been associated with lower lung function, but the results are inconsistence. The effects of different pollutant levels on lung function changes are still unclear. We quantified the effects of outdoor air pollution exposure (NO2, PM10, O3, and PM2.5) on lung function among 1,694 female non-smokers from the Wuhan-Zhuhai Cohort in China by using linear mixed model. We further investigated the associations in the two cities with different air quality levels separately to quantify the effects of different pollutant level exposure on lung function. We found the moving averages of NO2, PM10, and PM2.5 concentrations were significantly associated with reduced FVC. In city at high pollutant level, the moving average of NO2, PM10, O3, and PM2.5 exposures were significantly associated with both FVC and FEV1 reductions. In the low-level air pollution city, PM10 (Lag03-Lag05) and O3 concentrations (Lag01-Lag03) were significantly associated with reduced FVC, while PM10 (Lag03-Lag05), O3 (Lag0-Lag03), and PM2.5 (Lag04-Lag06) exposure were significantly associated with reduced FEV1. Our results suggest that outdoor air pollution is associated with short-term adverse effects on lung function among female non-smokers. The adverse effects may persist for longer durations within 7 days at higher air pollutant levels.
Highlights
Another barrier to explore the association between air pollution and lung function is the existence of effect modifiers
We found that NO2 (Lag07), PM10 (Lag03-Lag07), and PM2.5 (Lag02-Lag07) were significantly associated with forced vital capacity (FVC) reduction among female non-smokers
The adverse effects of high air pollutant levels on lung function could cumulate over several days, while the effects of low air pollutant levels could appear on the same day as exposure, and weak or absent for longer moving averages of exposures
Summary
Another barrier to explore the association between air pollution and lung function is the existence of effect modifiers. Oxidant stress, inflammation and tissue damage[18] Lung function levels among females are significantly lower than those among males due to lung development and physiology[19] Both smoking and sex have been reported to modify the association between outdoor air pollutants and lung function, but the results remain inconsistent; a few studies surprisingly did not find the effect modification[3,20,21]. We investigated short-term effects (up to 7 days) of air pollutants (NO2, PM10, O3, and PM2.5) on lung function among restricted to lifetime female non-smokers from the Wuhan-Zhuhai Cohort. We further examined the associations in the two study cities with different air quality levels separately to quantify the effects of different pollutant level exposures on lung function
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