Skip to main content
PMC home page
Environmental Health Perspectives logoLink to Environmental Health Perspectives
. 2003 Jan;111(1):45–52. doi: 10.1289/ehp.5276

Air pollution and daily mortality in a city with low levels of pollution.

Sverre Vedal 1, Michael Brauer 1, Richard White 1, John Petkau 1
PMCID: PMC1241305  PMID: 12515678

Abstract

The concentration-response relationship between daily ambient inhalable particle (particulate matter less than or equal to 10 micro m; PM(10)) concentrations and daily mortality typically shows no evidence of a threshold concentration below which no relationship is observed. However, the power to assess a relationship at very low concentrations of PM(10) has been limited in studies to date. The concentrations of PM(10) and other air pollutants in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, from January 1994 through December 1996 were very low: the 50th and 90th percentiles of daily average PM(10) concentrations were 13 and 23 micro g/m(3), respectively, and 27 and 39 ppb, respectively, for 1-hr maximum ozone. Analyses of 3 years of daily pollution (PM(10), ozone, sulfur dioxide, nitrogen dioxide, and carbon monoxide) concentrations and mortality counts showed that the dominant associations were between ozone and total mortality and respiratory and cardiovascular mortality in the summer, and between nitrogen dioxide and total mortality in the winter, although some association with PM(10) may also have been present. We conclude that increases in low concentrations of air pollution are associated with increased daily mortality. These findings may support the notion that no threshold pollutant concentrations are present, but they also raise concern that these effects may not be effects of the measured pollutants themselves, but rather of some other factor(s) present in the air pollution-meteorology mix.

Full Text

The Full Text of this article is available as a PDF (1.4 MB).

Selected References

These references are in PubMed. This may not be the complete list of references from this article.

  1. Brauer M., Brumm J., Vedal S., Petkau A. J. Exposure misclassification and threshold concentrations in time series analyses of air pollution health effects. Risk Anal. 2002 Dec;22(6):1183–1193. doi: 10.1111/1539-6924.00282. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  2. Burnett R. T., Cakmak S., Brook J. R. The effect of the urban ambient air pollution mix on daily mortality rates in 11 Canadian cities. Can J Public Health. 1998 May-Jun;89(3):152–156. doi: 10.1007/BF03404464. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  3. Burnett R. T., Cakmak S., Raizenne M. E., Stieb D., Vincent R., Krewski D., Brook J. R., Philips O., Ozkaynak H. The association between ambient carbon monoxide levels and daily mortality in Toronto, Canada. J Air Waste Manag Assoc. 1998 Aug;48(8):689–700. doi: 10.1080/10473289.1998.10463718. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  4. Chock D. P., Winkler S. L., Chen C. A study of the association between daily mortality and ambient air pollutant concentrations in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. J Air Waste Manag Assoc. 2000 Aug;50(8):1481–1500. doi: 10.1080/10473289.2000.10464170. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  5. Daniels M. J., Dominici F., Samet J. M., Zeger S. L. Estimating particulate matter-mortality dose-response curves and threshold levels: an analysis of daily time-series for the 20 largest US cities. Am J Epidemiol. 2000 Sep 1;152(5):397–406. doi: 10.1093/aje/152.5.397. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  6. Dominici Francesca, McDermott Aidan, Zeger Scott L., Samet Jonathan M. On the use of generalized additive models in time-series studies of air pollution and health. Am J Epidemiol. 2002 Aug 1;156(3):193–203. doi: 10.1093/aje/kwf062. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  7. Gong H., Jr, Wong R., Sarma R. J., Linn W. S., Sullivan E. D., Shamoo D. A., Anderson K. R., Prasad S. B. Cardiovascular effects of ozone exposure in human volunteers. Am J Respir Crit Care Med. 1998 Aug;158(2):538–546. doi: 10.1164/ajrccm.158.2.9709034. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  8. Kunst A. E., Looman C. W., Mackenbach J. P. Outdoor air temperature and mortality in The Netherlands: a time-series analysis. Am J Epidemiol. 1993 Feb 1;137(3):331–341. doi: 10.1093/oxfordjournals.aje.a116680. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  9. Mar T. F., Norris G. A., Koenig J. Q., Larson T. V. Associations between air pollution and mortality in Phoenix, 1995-1997. Environ Health Perspect. 2000 Apr;108(4):347–353. doi: 10.1289/ehp.00108347. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  10. Moolgavkar S. H. Air pollution and daily mortality in three U.S. counties. Environ Health Perspect. 2000 Aug;108(8):777–784. doi: 10.1289/ehp.00108777. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  11. Pope C. A., 3rd, Kalkstein L. S. Synoptic weather modeling and estimates of the exposure-response relationship between daily mortality and particulate air pollution. Environ Health Perspect. 1996 Apr;104(4):414–420. doi: 10.1289/ehp.96104414. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  12. Rogot E., Padgett S. J. Associations of coronary and stroke mortality with temperature and snowfall in selected areas of the United States, 1962-1966. Am J Epidemiol. 1976 Jun;103(6):565–575. doi: 10.1093/oxfordjournals.aje.a112261. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  13. Samet J. M., Dominici F., Curriero F. C., Coursac I., Zeger S. L. Fine particulate air pollution and mortality in 20 U.S. cities, 1987-1994. N Engl J Med. 2000 Dec 14;343(24):1742–1749. doi: 10.1056/NEJM200012143432401. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  14. Sarnat J. A., Koutrakis P., Suh H. H. Assessing the relationship between personal particulate and gaseous exposures of senior citizens living in Baltimore, MD. J Air Waste Manag Assoc. 2000 Jul;50(7):1184–1198. doi: 10.1080/10473289.2000.10464165. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  15. Sarnat J. A., Schwartz J., Suh H. H. Fine particulate air pollution and mortality in 20 U.S. cities. N Engl J Med. 2001 Apr 19;344(16):1253–1254. doi: 10.1056/NEJM200104193441614. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  16. Schwartz J., Zanobetti A. Using meta-smoothing to estimate dose-response trends across multiple studies, with application to air pollution and daily death. Epidemiology. 2000 Nov;11(6):666–672. doi: 10.1097/00001648-200011000-00009. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  17. Touloumi G., Katsouyanni K., Zmirou D., Schwartz J., Spix C., de Leon A. P., Tobias A., Quennel P., Rabczenko D., Bacharova L. Short-term effects of ambient oxidant exposure on mortality: a combined analysis within the APHEA project. Air Pollution and Health: a European Approach. Am J Epidemiol. 1997 Jul 15;146(2):177–185. doi: 10.1093/oxfordjournals.aje.a009249. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]

Articles from Environmental Health Perspectives are provided here courtesy of National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences

RESOURCES