Abstract
Numerous recent epidemiological studies have linked health effects with short-term exposure to air pollution levels commonly found in North America. The association between two key pollutants—ozone and fine particulate matter— and mortality in 12 Canadian cities was explored in a time-series study. City-specific estimates were obtained using Poisson regression models, adjusting for the effects of seasonality and temperature. Estimates were then pooled across cities using the inverse variance method. For a 10 ppb increase in 1-hr daily maximum ozone levels, significant associations were in the range of 0.56% - 2.47% increase in mortality. For a 10 μg/m3 increase in the 24-hr average PM2.5 concentration of, significant associations varied between 0.91% and 3.17% increase in mortality. Generally, stronger associations were found among the elderly. Effects estimates were robust to adjustment for seasonality, but were sensitive to lag structures. There was no evidence for effect modification of the mortality-exposure association by city-level ecologic covariates.
Highlights
Health effects of air pollution have become a major public health concern in North America, Europe and other developed regions in the past several years
The air pollution data were obtained through the National Air Pollution Surveillance (NAPS) program administered by Environment Canada, which is subject to an extensive quality assurance program
Ozone measurements were available on a daily basis during the period 1981-2000, with few missing data
Summary
Health effects of air pollution have become a major public health concern in North America, Europe and other developed regions in the past several years. The World Health Organization estimated 1.34 million premature deaths (2.4% of total deaths) were attributable to outdoor air pollution in 2008 [1]. Using satellite imaging data to predict tropospheric PM2.5 concentrations globally, Evans et al [2] recently estimated that 7% of global mortality may be attributable to particulate air pollution
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