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A time-series study of air pollution, socioeconomic status, and mortality in Vancouver, Canada

Journal of Exposure Science & Environmental Epidemiology volume 13, pages 427–435 (2003)Cite this article

Abstract

We evaluated the relationship between daily levels of particulate and gaseous phase pollutants and mortality within a dynamic cohort of approximately 550,000 individuals whose vital status was ascertained between 1986 and 1999. Time-series methods were applied to evaluate whether there were differential pollutant effects on daily aggregated numbers of deaths in the cohort that was stratified into quintiles of income as defined by the 1991 and 1996 Canadian censuses. The percent change in all-cause, cardiovascular, respiratory, and cancer daily mortality was calculated in relation to short-term changes in levels of a number of particulate (PM2.5, PM10–2.5, total suspended particle co-efficient of haze PM10, SO4) and gaseous (O3, CO, SO2, NO2) pollutants. The estimated effects of air pollution on mortality were adjusted for day of week effects, and several meteorologic variables including temperature, change in barometric pressure, and relative humidity. Several gaseous pollutants were associated with an increased risk of mortality. Specifically for an increase equivalent to the difference between the 90th and 10th percentiles, the estimated percent change in daily mortality based on the 3-day average of NO2, and SO2 was 4.0% and 1.3%, respectively. The corresponding changes in mortality associated with SO2 were much higher when analyses were restricted to death from respiratory disease. Specifically, a difference between the 90th and 10th percentiles was associated with a 5.6% (95% CI= −0.7% to 12.3%). The daily mean coarse fraction (PM10–2.5) was associated with increased cardiovascular mortality (estimated change=5.9%, 95% CI=1.1–10.8%). PM2.5 was not found to be an important predictor of mortality. For NO2, CO, and SO2, there was some suggestion of increased risk of all-cause and cardiovascular mortality at lower levels of socioeconomic status. However, these results should be interpreted cautiously due to the small number of deaths observed within each stratum of socioeconomic status.

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Acknowledgements

We are indebted to Ron Strohmaier of the BC Ministry of Health, and Kim McGrail and Soo-Hong Uh of the BC Centre for Health Policy and Research for providing background information on the BC Linked Cohort and their assistance with the record linkage process. We thank Jeff Brook and Thomas Dann of Environment Canada for providing meteorologic and air pollutant data. This research was supported by a contribution agreement from Health Canada under the Toxic Substances Research Initiative. D. Krewski is the NSERC/SSHRS/McLaughlin Chair in Population Health Risk Assessment at the University of Ottawa. Dr. Goldberg gratefully acknowledges receipt of a National Health Scholar award from the National Health and Research Development Program of Health Canada and support from the Fonds de la recherche en santé du Québec. Dr. Chen currently holds a Canadian Institutes of Health Research Investigator Award.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Public Health Sciences, University of Toronto, Toronto, M5S 1A8, Ontario, Canada

    Paul J Villeneuve & Jeff Brook

  2. Epistream Consulting Inc, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada

    Paul J Villeneuve

  3. Environmental Health Directorate, Health Canada, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada

    Richard T Burnett

  4. Department of Epidemiology and Community Medicine, University of Ottawa, 451 Smyth Road, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, K1H 8M5

    Yuanli Shi, Daniel Krewski & Yue Chen

  5. McLaughlin Centre for Population Health Risk Assessment, Institute of Population Health, University of Ottawa, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada

    Daniel Krewski

  6. Department of Medicine and the Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, McGill University, Montreal, Quebec, Canada

    Mark S Goldberg

  7. B.C. Centre for Health Policy and Research, Vancouver, BC, Canada

    Clyde Hertzman

  8. Atmospheric Environment Service, Environment Canada, Ontario, Canada

    Jeff Brook

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  1. Paul J Villeneuve
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Correspondence to Paul J Villeneuve.

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Villeneuve, P., Burnett, R., Shi, Y. et al. A time-series study of air pollution, socioeconomic status, and mortality in Vancouver, Canada. J Expo Sci Environ Epidemiol 13, 427–435 (2003). https://doi.org/10.1038/sj.jea.7500292

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