Abstract
Background: Current air quality standards for particulate matter use the mass concentration with aerodynamic diameters ≤2.5 μm (PM2.5) and ≤10 μm (PM10). It has been suggested that particles from combustion sources are more relevant to human health than particles from other sources. Only few studies have assessed for adverse health effects of black carbon particles (BC) as an additional in air quality indicator in Europe.
Objective: To investigate the short-term effects of BC daily mortality and hospital admissions due to respiratory diseases (ICD10: J00-J99) in the city of Barcelona, Spain.
Methods: We collected daily mortality and hospital admissions due to respiratory diseases and daily 24h average levels of BC and PM (PM2.5 and PM10) between 2009 and 2011. We used a time-stratified case-crossover design with Poisson regression allowing for overdispersion. BC estimates are compared with those obtained with the usual indicators of PM mass.
Results: An increase of an interquartile of 1.4 μg/m3 in BC increased risk of respiratory mortality by 10%. No effects were found for hospital admissions, but when looking at specific diseases BC increased risk of asthma admissions by 5%. Estimated effects were greater for BC than for PM2.5 and PM10. Multi-pollutant models showed that effect of the BC was more robust than effect of the PM mass.
Conclusions: BC is a valuable additional air quality indicator to evaluate the health risks of air quality dominated by primary combustion particles.
- © 2014 ERS
