Air Pollution and Mortality in Elderly People: A Time-Series Study in Sao Paulo, Brazil

Abstract

The relationship between daily mortality of elderly (65+ y) persons and air pollution in the metropolitan area of Sao Paulo, Brazil, for the period May 1990 to April 1991 was evaluated by time series regression, controlling for season, weather, and other factors. Mortality was associated with respirable particles (PM10), nitrogen oxides (NOx), sulfur dioxide (SO2), and carbon monoxide (CO). The association with PM10 was most statistically significant, robust, and independent of other air pollutants. An increase in PM10 equal to 100 micrograms/m3 was associated with an increase in overall mortality equal to approximately 13%. This association was consistent across various model specifications and estimation techniques. The dose-response relationship between mortality and respirable particulate pollution was almost linear, with no evidence of a "safe" threshold level. The results were similar to those observed in London and several U.S. cities. The results were also supportive of recent animal studies that have observed adverse health outcomes in experimental animals exposed to air pollution in Sao Paulo.

A longitudinal study of mortality and air pollution for São Paulo, Brazil

“…Our main conclusion is in agreement with other recent findings that there is an association between air pollution and mortality (Saez et al, 1999;Dominici et al, 2000 ). The results are also in agreement with a previous study of air pollution and mortality for people over 65 years old in São Paulo based on data collected shortly before ours ( Saldiva et al, 1995 ). In studies such as ours involving several airpollution variables, problems with multicollinearity between the variables often make it difficult to assign the air pollution effect to a single variable or combination of variables with any reasonable degree of certainty.…”

“…The association between air pollution and human health in the city of São Paulo, Brazil, has long been of public concern and the subject of several studies (Saldiva et al, 1994;Saldiva et al, 1995;Miraglia et al, 1997;Pereira et al, 1998;Braga et al, 1999;Lin et al, 1999 ). The main objective of the present investigation is to examine the relationship between air pollution and mortality, controlling for meteorological variables, based on daily death counts for people over 65 years old in São Paulo.…”

Rainwater toxicity and contamination study from São Paulo Metropolitan Region, Brazil

“…Both literature and reports from the State Environmental Agency regularly inform that air pollution is worse during winter, that is, the dry season (Castanho and Artaxo 2001;CETESB 2009;Lin et al 2004;Orsini et al 1986;Sharovski et al 2004), and so, a worse condition in rainwater would be expected during dry season. Besides, it has been stated that better atmospheric conditions in wet seasons are a result of washing process produced by frequent rains (Castanho and Artaxo 2001;Lin et al 2004;Saldiva et al 1995), as demonstrated to other areas of the world (Singh et al 2007). Nevertheless, our data corroborate the evidences that convective rainstorm episodes are more effective in removing contaminants from the atmosphere.…”

Avaliação da correlação entre as concentrações de poluentes atmosféricos e a mortalidade de idosos no município de Curitiba

“…A análise foi feita de modo visual, procurando-se observar a variação ao longo do ano da razão das médias mensais pela média anual do número de óbitos e da razão das médias mensais pela média anual das variáveis meteorológicas. Os grupos mais afetados, em geral, são crianças e idosos (KINNEY e OZKAYNAK, 1991;SALDIVA et al, 1995;FREITAS et al, 2004;FILLEUL et al, 2004;CANÇADO et al, 2006;OSTRO et al, 2006;DANNI-OLIVEIRA, 2008;TRESMONDI et al, 2008) …”