Health Effects of Acid Aerosols on North American Children: Respiratory Symptoms

Abstract

JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.. The National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS) andBrogan & Partners are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Environmental Health Perspectives.We examined the respiratory health effects of exposure to acidic air pollution among 13,369 white children 8 to 12 years old from 24 communities in the United States and Canada between 1988 and 1991. Each child's parent or guardian completed a questionnaire. Air quality and meteorology were measured in each community for a 1-year period. We used a two-stage logistic regression model to analyze the data, adjusting for the potential confoulnding effects of sex, history of allergies, parental asthma, parental education, and current smoking in the home. Children living in the community with the highest levels of partice strong acidity were significanty more likely [odds ratio (OR) = 1.66; 95% confidence interval (CI) 1.11-2.48] to report at least one episode of bronchitis in the past year compared to children living in the least-polluted community. Fine particulate sulfate was also associated with higher reporting of bronchitis (OR = 1.65; 95% CI 1.12-2.42). No other respiratory symptoms were significantly higher in association with any of the air pollutants of interest. No sensitive subgroups were identified. Reported bronchitis, but neither asthma, wheeze, cough, nor phlegm, were associated with levels of partice strong acidity for these children living in a nonurban environment.

Long-term ambient air pollution levels in four Chinese cities: inter-city and intra-city concentration gradients for epidemiological studies

“…In each study, exposure -effects relationships can be derived for the pollution range encountered in the study and thus, a wide pollution range is favorable. The eight districts of this study exhibited a wide range for each concerned pollutant, as shown clearly in Figure 5 where the ranges from major previous US /Europe studies are also shown for comparison purposes (Ware et al, 1986;Dockery et al, 1989Dockery et al, , 1996Spengler et al, 1996;Braun -Fahrlander et al, 1997;Peters et al, 1999b;Pikhart et al, 2000 ). The comparison indicates that the data on pollution levels collected in this study substantially extended the upper end of the pollution ranges of major published studies.…”

“…Health effects of exposure to ambient air pollution have been extensively investigated in epidemiological studies in North American and European cities ( Chapman et al, 1985;Ware et al, 1986;Dockery et al, 1993Dockery et al, , 1996Pope et al, 1995;Peters et al, 1999a,b;Pikhart et al, 2000 ). Although these studies have found, more or less, evidence of adverse health effects of air pollution exposure, the available results remain subject to significant uncertainties in several key areas including: (1 ) the community health effects of longterm exposure; ( 2) the relative health importance of different air pollutants and different size fractions and constituents of atmospheric particles; (3 ) the ethnic, demographic, and other factors that influence susceptibility to air pollution effects.…”

Air pollution, aeroallergens and cardiorespiratory emergency department visits in Saint John, Canada

“…The strong negative association between hydrogen ion and ED visits was surprising given that relatively high peak levels were observed, although results from epidemiologic studies of the effects of hydrogen ion have been mixed. Significant positive associations with various adverse health outcomes have been reported by some investigators (Burnett et al, 1997a;Delfino et al, 1997;Dockery et al, 1996a;Lippmann and Ito, 1995;Neas et al, 1995;Raizenne et al, 1996;Thurston et al, 1994 ), whereas in other studies, no effect was apparent (Dockery et al, 1996b;Schwartz et al, 1996) , or the effect of hydrogen ion was weaker than that of other measures of particulate matter (Dockery et al, 1993 ). This could be partially mediated by a very weak correlation between levels measured at centrally located monitors and personal exposure, which we have observed in Saint John (Stieb et al, 1998b) , and which has been reported elsewhere (Brauer et al, 1989;Suh et al, 1992 ).…”

Residence location as a measure of environmental exposure: a review of air pollution epidemiology studies

“…As a result, four studies distinguished exposure groups by areas with different measured pollutant levels (Ware et al, 1986;Dockery et al, 1989;Pope, 1991;Horstman et al, 1997 ). In four other studies, exposure groups were aggregated from populations of different areas with comparable pollutant levels (Schenker et al, 1983(Schenker et al, ,1986Dockery et al, 1996;Raizenne et al, 1996 ). Table 2 summarizes the study populations, the numbers and types of exposed and control groups, and the scale of study areas.…”