Figure 1.
Mortality hazard ratios (95% confidence intervals) associated with a 10 μg/m3 increase in PM2.5 for all/natural-cause mortality, CVD/circulatory mortality, ischemic heart disease mortality, and stroke/cerebrovascular mortality. Blue diamonds are meta estimates from a recent systematic review (4). Green circles are estimates from selected other potentially vulnerable cohorts, including the cardiac transplant cohort (5), the MI survivor cohort (6), and the patients with cancer/cancer survivor cohort (7). Orange squares and triangles are estimates from the analysis by Alexeeff and colleagues (11) of the full chronic obstructive pulmonary disease cohort and the low-exposure subcohort, respectively. COPD = chronic obstructive pulmonary disease; CVD = cardiovascular disease; HR = hazard ratio; IHD = ischemic heart disease; MI = myocardial infarction; PM2.5 = particulate matter ⩽2.5 ?m in aerodynamic diameter.