Abstract
ISEE-81 Abstract: The relationship between ambient air pollution and cardiopulmonary mortality is currently a topic of debate. If there is a relationship, this could have great implication for policy regulations. Methods: To study the health effect of long-term ambient air pollution, a cohort of 6,338 nonsmoking, white California Seventh-day Adventists was followed with respect to mortality from 1977-1998. To be included in the study, participants must have lived within 10 miles of their 1977 address for the previous 10 years. At baseline in 1977, a comprehensive lifestyle and diet questionnaire was completed and the cohort was followed with update of residence and workplace in order to assess monthly averages of ambient air pollutants throughout the study period. Exposure to environmental tobacco smoke, dusts and fumes in the workplaces and time spent outdoors was assessed through self-administered questionnaires in 1977, 1987 and again in 1992 and 2000. The risk of cardiopulmonary mortality and all natural cause mortality was ascertained from 1977-1998 through matching with death certificates obtained from the National Death Index (NDI). Monthly indices of particulate ambient air pollutant concentrations (PM10, PM2.5, PM10-2.5) were obtained from the California Air Resource Board monitoring stations from 1973-1998 or from airport visibility measures (PM2.5), and interpolated to residence and work zip code centroids. Cox proportional hazards models with time dependent air pollution measures were used to estimate relative risks (RR) associated with an increase of 10 mg/m3 in mean concentrations of each ambient air pollutant averaged over the period 1973 to time of death. The associations were further tested in two-pollutant models with ozone added to each model. Persons with baseline stroke, CHD or diabetes were excluded from the study. The analyses were controlled for age, pack-years of past cigarette smoking, history of hypertension, BMI, years of education, diet and total exercise level. Results: Elevated risk of cardiopulmonary and all natural cause mortality was found for PM2.5 in two-pollutant models with ozone in females, but not in males.TABLE 1Conclusion: It is unclear why females show a higher sensitivity to the effects of ambient levels of PM2.5. The observed relationships could have implications for public health policy. However, further studies are needed to confirm our findings in other studies.
Published Version
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