Seasonal Pattern of the Acute Mortality Effects of Air Pollution

Abstract

Evidence of seasonal variation of acute mortality effects of air pollution is inconsistent. The seasonal patterns of associations between daily mortality and daily mean concentrations of particulate matter 10 m or less in aerodynamic diameter (PM 10 ), sulfur dioxide (SO 2 ), and nitrogen dioxide (NO 2 ) were examined using 4 yr of data (2001)(2002)(2003)(2004) in Wuhan, China. Four distinct seasons occur in Wuhan, where approximately 4.5 million residents live in the city core area of 201 km 2 . Air pollution levels are higher and pollution ranges are wider in Wuhan than in most cities. Quasi-likelihood estimation within the context of the generalized additive models (natural spline [NS] models in R) was used to model the natural logarithm of the expected daily death counts as a function of the predictor variables. The estimates of the interaction between seasons and pollution were obtained from the main effects and pollutant season interaction models. It was found that the interactions between three pollutants and cause-specific mortality were statistically significant (P Ͻ 0.05). The strongest effects occurred consistently in winter for all-natural, cardiovascular, stroke, and respiratory mortality. Every 10-g/m 3 increase in PM 10 daily concentration at lag 0 -1 days was associated with an increase in all-natural mortality of 0.69% (95% confidence interval [CI]: 0.44 -0.94%) for winter, 0.34% (95% CI: 0.00 -0.69%) for spring, 0.45% (95% CI: Ϫ0.13 to IMPLICATIONS This study suggests that season significantly modified the mortality effect of pollutants. The highest pollution levels of PM 10 , SO 2 , and NO 2 occurred in winter, and so did the strongest effects of PM 10 , SO 2 , and NO 2 on all daily causespecific mortality. These results may have implications for local environmental protection agencies and public health agencies in efforts to limit pollution emissions in winter and to reduce the wintertime exposure to pollutants.

A rapid assessment of the impact of hazard reduction burning around Sydney, May 2016

“…Twenty-four time-series studies of mortality, which used two-pollutant and/or multipollutant models for NO 2 , have been published since the 2005 global update of the WHO air quality guidelines (Burnett et al, 2004;Dales et al, 2004;Kan, Jia & Chen, 2004a,b;Zeka & Schwartz, 2004;Simpson et al, 2005a;Díaz, Linares & Tobías, 2006;Samoli et al, 2006;Brook et al, 2007;Qian et al, 2007Qian et al, , 2010Yamazaki et al, 2007;Chen et al, 2008;Hu et al, 2008;Ren Y et al, 2008c;Wong et al, 2008;Breitner et al, 2009;Chen et al, 2010a;López-Villarrubia et al, 2010;Park, Hong & Kim, 2011;Chiusolo et al, 2011;Chen et al, 2012a,b;Faustini et al, 2012;Chen et al, 2013). 4 All of these papers included adjustments for a metric of PM; 17 of the 24 papers reported positive, though not always statistically significant, short-term associations of NO 2 with mortality for a range of diagnoses and age groups, after adjustment for a PM metric.…”

Correlation Between Occurrence and Deterioration of Respiratory Diseases and Air Pollution Within the Legally Permissible Limits

“…Adaptation and mitigation measures are strongly needed 1 . Th e exposure to air pollutants and changes of meteorological parameters (air temperature, humidity and pressure) may be related to higher morbidity and mortality, as well as to a higher number of patients presenting to emergency department (ED) [2][3][4] . Air pollution poses great health risk even in developed countries with legally defi ned thresholds of air pollutant concentration 5,6 .…”

“…Air pollution poses great health risk even in developed countries with legally defi ned thresholds of air pollutant concentration 5,6 . Zagreb is the capital and the largest city (790,017 citizens, area 641 km 2 ) of the Republic of Croatia, a country situated in southeastern Europe…”

Cardiovascular diseases in the population of industrial towns and environmental factors

“…Z. Qian и соавт. [12] также выявили зависимость смертности от патологии ССС от среднесуточных кон-центраций взвешенных веществ, диоксида серы и двуоки-си азота в атмосферном воздухе китайского города Ухань на 0,69% (от 0,44 до 0,94%) зимой, на 0,34% (от 0,00 до 0,69%) весной, на 0,45% (от -0,13 до 1,04%) летом и на 0,21% (от 0,54 до 0,12%) осенью.…”