The mortality associated with exposure to PM2.5 and NO2 has long been described, but few studies have used causal modeling methods that can help moving from statistical association to causal inference. Researchers at the Harvard/MIT ACE Center used three different methods to estimate the causal effect of local pollution on mortality in 135 US cities. Read More
Tag: NOx
Air pollution and chronic bronchitis
Air pollution exposure was found to be associated with chronic bronchitis (chronic cough and sputum production) in a recent study by researchers at the University of Washington. The study was conducted on the large Sisters Study cohort (about 50,000 participants), limiting analysis to never-smokers, and using exposure models to PM10, PM2.5, and NO2 developed for Read More
Traffic and plasma glucose
Proximity to roadways was associated with modestly higher blood glucose levels in healthy people, in a study supported by the Harvard Clean Air Research Center and the ACE center. Participants in the Framingham Offspring and Third generation cohorts (average age 51 years) in New England, who were without diabetes, and were examined for a variety Read More
Nitrogen oxides and Interstitial Lung Disease
Exposure to nitrogen oxides was associated with Interstitial Lung Disease (ILD) in a study on older adults part of the MESA Air project at the University of Washington. ILD is a group of chronic lung diseases characterized by pulmonary inflammation and fibrosis, affecting about 0.5% of older adults, and generally diagnosed late in the disease Read More
Long-term exposure to air pollution was linked to faster progression of atherosclerosis
Long-term exposure to air pollution was linked to faster progression of atherosclerosis in a new major epidemiological study. In an article appearing on The Lancet on May 24 2016, researchers led by Joel Kaufmann at the University of Washington report the result of the Multi-Ethnic Study of Atherosclerosis and Air Pollution, involving more than 6,000 Read More