Short-term Exposure to Air Pollution at Levels Below Current Standards And Risk of Death


Medicine, Health Care Short-term Exposure to Air Pollution…

Published: December 28, 2017.
Released by JAMA  

Bottom Line: Short-term exposure to air pollution at levels below current air quality standards were associated with a higher risk of death in older adults.

Why The Research Is Interesting: The Clean Air Act requires that National Ambient Air Quality Standards for fine particulate matter and ozone be reviewed every five years. Estimates of the risk of death at air pollution levels below the current standards are needed and a large study population is necessary to calculate those.

Who and When: Medicare patients throughout the United States from 2000-2012 living in more than 39,000 zip codes.

What (Study Measures): Estimated daily ambient fine particulate matter and ozone levels (exposures); death (outcome)

How (Study Design): This is a case-crossover study, a kind of study design used in epidemiology to study outcomes from a suspected transient exposure like air pollution in a large population over time.

Authors: Joel D. Schwartz, Ph.D., of the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, Boston, and coauthors

Results: Daily increases in fine particulate matter and ozone were associated with increased risk of death among more than 22 million Medicare beneficiaries, even when fine particulate matter and ozone levels were below current air quality standards.

Study Limitations: The findings are unlikely to be generalizable to adults younger than those enrolled in Medicare.

Study Conclusions: Current national air quality standards may need to be reevaluated because exposure to fine particulate matter and ozone at levels below those standards were associated with increased risk of death in a study of the Medicare population.


Chinese French German Italian Japanese Korean Portuguese Russian Spanish