Understanding the Joint Impacts of Fine Particulate Matter Concentration and Composition on the Incidence and Mortality of Cardiovascular Disease: A Component-Adjusted Approach
- DOI
- Language of the publication
- English
- Date
- 2020-02-26
- Type
- Article
- Author(s)
- Chen, Hong
- Zhang, Zilong
- van Donkelaar, Aaron
- Bai, Li
- Martin, Randall V.
- Lavigne, Eric
- Kwong, Jeffrey C.
- Burnett, Richard T.
- Publisher
- American Chemical Society
Abstract
Past health impact assessments of ambient fine particulate matter (particles with an aerodynamic diameter ≤2.5 μm; PM2.5) have generally considered mass concentration only, despite PM2.5 being a heterogeneous mixture. Given constant changes in the concentration and the composition of atmospheric aerosol, uncertainty exists as to whether the current focus on PM2.5 mass or individual components may fully characterize the health burden of PM2.5. We proposed a component-adjusted method that jointly estimates the health impacts of PM2.5 and its major components while allowing for a potential nonlinear PM2.5-outcome relationship. Using this method, we quantified the effects of PM2.5 on the risks of developing acute myocardial infarction (AMI) and dying from cardiovascular causes in comparison to three traditional approaches in the entire adult population across Ontario, Canada. We observed that PM2.5 was positively associated with AMI incidence and cardiovascular mortality with all four methods. Compared to the traditional approaches, however, the new component-adjusted approach demonstrated a significant improvement in explaining the health impacts of PM2.5, especially in the presence of a nonlinear PM2.5-outcome relationship. Using the new approach, we found that the effects of PM2.5 on AMI incidence and cardiovascular mortality may be 10% to 27% higher than what would be estimated from the conventional approaches examining PM2.5 alone.
Plain language summary
"Under the Federal Clean Air Regulatory Agenda (CARA), Health Canada conducts scientific research to evaluate the health risks of ambient air pollution. In past decades, ambient fine particulate air pollution (PM2.5) has been linked to a wide range of adverse health effects. However, these past health risk assessments of PM2.5 generally assume that the toxicity of PM2.5 depends only on mass concentration, despite the fact that PM2.5 mass is a heterogeneous mixture of solid and liquid droplets with wide distributions of size and mass, each of which may have health effects of their own. As a result, considerable uncertainty exists as to whether the current focus on PM2.5 mass or individual components fully addresses the total health burden experienced by the public’s exposure to constant changes in the atmospheric mixture. Health Canada led a large cohort study in collaboration with researchers from other organizations to develop a new statistical method to jointly estimate the effects of PM2.5 mass concentrations and its major components such as black carbon and organic matter. As a working example, the research team also applied it to quantify the effects of PM2.5 on the risks of developing and dying from major cardiovascular diseases in Ontario. Comparing to the alternative modeling methods, the new component-adjusted approach was found to substantially improve the health risk assessments of PM2.5. The new approach can provide superior predicting power and a refined understanding of the health effects of PM2.5 compared with a range of alternative approaches."
Subject
- Health,
- Health and safety