Associations between long-term air pollution exposure and mortality and cardiovascular morbidity: A comparison of mobility-integrated and residential-only exposure assessment
Aisha Ndiaye, Danielle Vienneau, Benjamin Flückiger, Nicole Probst-Hensch, Ayoung Jeong, Medea Imboden, Oliver Schmitz, Meng Lu, Roel Vermeulen, Kalliopi Kyriakou, Youchen Shen, Derek Karssenberg, Kees de Hoogh, Gerard Hoek
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引用次数: 0
Abstract
Epidemiological studies investigating the health effects of long-term air pollution exposure typically only consider the participants’ residential addresses when determining exposure. Neglecting mobility may introduce measurement error, potentially leading to bias or reduced precision of exposure-health relationships in epidemiological studies. In this study we compared the exposure-health associations between residential-only and mobility-integrated air pollution exposures.We evaluated two major pollutants, NO2 and PM2.5, and four health outcomes, natural and cause-specific mortality and coronary and cerebrovascular events. Agent-based modeling (ABM) was used to simulate the mobility patterns of the participants in the EPIC-NL cohort in the Netherlands and the Swiss National Cohort (SNC) in Switzerland, based on travel survey information. To obtain mobility-integrated exposures, hourly air pollution surfaces were developed and overlaid with the time-dependent location data from the ABM. We used Cox proportional hazards models within each cohort separately to evaluate the association between residential-only and mobility-integrated exposure and mortality and cardiovascular events, adjusting for major individual and area-level covariates.The mobility-integrated exposure and the residential exposure showed very high correlations for both pollutants and cohorts (R2 > 0.97). The mean exposure was 1–2 % and the exposure contrast 10–20 % lower for the mobility-integrated exposure. For all health outcomes, both pollutants and both cohorts, there were only small differences between residential-only and mobility-integrated exposure effect estimates. For the SNC, Hazard ratios (HRs) for natural mortality were 1.04 (1.03 – 1.04) and 1.03 (1.03 – 1.04) per interquartile range (IQR) increase in NO2 for residential and mobility-integrated exposure, respectively. For PM2.5 the corresponding estimates were 1.01 (1.01 – 1.02) per IQR increase for both approaches. Our findings support the growing evidence that assessment of long-term air pollution exposure at the residential address only in epidemiological studies may not lead to substantial bias and loss of precision in health effects estimates.
期刊介绍:
Environmental Health publishes manuscripts focusing on critical aspects of environmental and occupational medicine, including studies in toxicology and epidemiology, to illuminate the human health implications of exposure to environmental hazards. The journal adopts an open-access model and practices open peer review.
It caters to scientists and practitioners across all environmental science domains, directly or indirectly impacting human health and well-being. With a commitment to enhancing the prevention of environmentally-related health risks, Environmental Health serves as a public health journal for the community and scientists engaged in matters of public health significance concerning the environment.