Estimating mortality burden attributable to short-term PM2.5 exposure: A national observational study in China

• Type of Material: Article
• Authors: Tiatian Li, Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention; Yuming Guo, Monash University; Yang Liu, Emory University; Jiaonan Wang, Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention; Qing Wang, Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention; Zhiying Sun, Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention; Mike Z. He, Columbia University; Xiaoming Shi, Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention
• Language: English
• Date: 2019-04-01
• Publisher: Elsevier: Creative Commons Licenses
• Publication Version: Final Published Version
• Copyright Statement: © 2019 The Authors
• License: Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 4.0 International
• Final Published Version (URL): http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.envint.2019.01.073
• Title of Journal or Parent Work: Environment International
• ISSN: 0160-4120
• Volume: 125
• Start Page: 245
• End Page: 251
• Grant/Funding Information: This work was supported by grants from the National Key Research and Development Program of China (Grant No. 2016YFC0206500); the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant Nos. 81573247, 91543111); the National High-Level Talents Special Support Plan of China for Young Talents.
• Keywords: TIME-SERIES; AMBIENT PM2.5; HEALTH; GLOBAL BURDEN; Non-linear; Short-term; COMPARATIVE RISK-ASSESSMENT; Life Sciences & Biomedicine; CLUSTERS; AIR-POLLUTION; Science & Technology; Mortality burden; FINE; DISEASE; Environmental Sciences; PM2.5; Environmental Sciences & Ecology; SYSTEMATIC ANALYSIS
• Research Categories: Environmental Sciences; Health Sciences, Public Health

Abstract

Studies worldwide have estimated the number of deaths attributable to long-term exposure to fine airborne particles (PM 2.5 ), but limited information is available on short-term exposure, particularly in China. In addition, most existing studies have assumed that short-term PM 2.5 -mortality associations were linear. For this reason, the use of linear exposure-response functions for calculating disease burden of short-term exposure to PM 2.5 in China may not be appropriate. There is an urgent need for a comprehensive, evidence-based assessment of the disease burden related to short-term PM 2.5 exposure in China. Here, we explored the non-linear association between short-term PM 2.5 exposure and all-cause mortality in 104 counties in China; estimated county-specific mortality burdens attributable to short-term PM 2.5 exposure for all counties in the country and analyzed spatial characteristics of the mortality burden due to short-term PM 2.5 exposure in China. The pooled PM 2.5 -mortality association was non-linear, with a reversed J-shape. We found an approximately linear increased risk of mortality from 0 to 62 μg/m 3 and decreased risk from 62 to 250 μg/m 3 . We estimated a total of 169,862 additional deaths from short-term PM 2.5 exposure throughout China in 2015. Models using linear exposure-response functions for the PM 2.5 -mortality association estimated 32,186 deaths attributable to PM 2.5 exposure, which is 5.3 times lower than estimates from the non-linear effect model. Short-term PM 2.5 exposure contributed greatly to the death burden in China, approximately one seventh of the estimates from the chronic effect. It is essential and crucial to incorporate short-term PM 2.5 -related mortality estimations when considering the disease burden attributable to PM 2.5 in developing countries such as China. Traditional linear effect models likely underestimated the mortality burden due to short-term exposure to PM 2.5 .