scholarly journals Long-Term Exposure to Fine and Coarse Particulate Matter and COVID-19 Incidence and Mortality Rate in Chile during 2020

Author(s):  
Macarena Valdés Salgado ◽  
Pamela Smith ◽  
Mariel Opazo ◽  
Nicolás Huneeus

Background: Several countries have documented the relationship between long-term exposure to air pollutants and epidemiological indicators of the COVID-19 pandemic, such as incidence and mortality. This study aims to explore the association between air pollutants, such as PM2.5 and PM10, and the incidence and mortality rates of COVID-19 during 2020. Methods: The incidence and mortality rates were estimated using the COVID-19 cases and deaths from the Chilean Ministry of Science, and the population size was obtained from the Chilean Institute of Statistics. A chemistry transport model was used to estimate the annual mean surface concentration of PM2.5 and PM10 in a period before the current pandemic. Negative binomial regressions were used to associate the epidemiological information with pollutant concentrations while considering demographic and social confounders. Results: For each microgram per cubic meter, the incidence rate increased by 1.3% regarding PM2.5 and 0.9% regarding PM10. There was no statistically significant relationship between the COVID-19 mortality rate and PM2.5 or PM10. Conclusions: The adjusted regression models showed that the COVID-19 incidence rate was significantly associated with chronic exposure to PM2.5 and PM10, even after adjusting for other variables.

2020 ◽  
Vol 20 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Jeongeun Hwang ◽  
Jinhee Kwon ◽  
Hahn Yi ◽  
Hyun-Jin Bae ◽  
Miso Jang ◽  
...  

Abstract Background The association between long-term exposure to air pollutants, including nitrogen dioxide (NO2), carbon monoxide (CO), sulfur dioxide (SO2), ozone (O3), and particulate matter 10 μm or less in diameter (PM10), and mortality by ischemic heart disease (IHD), cerebrovascular disease (CVD), pneumonia (PN), and chronic lower respiratory disease (CLRD) is unclear. We investigated whether living in an administrative district with heavy air pollution is associated with an increased risk of mortality by the diseases through an ecological study using South Korean administrative data over 19 years. Methods A total of 249 Si-Gun-Gus, unit of administrative districts in South Korea were studied. In each district, the daily concentrations of CO, SO2, NO2, O3, and PM10 were averaged over 19 years (2001–2018). Age-adjusted mortality rates by IHD, CVD, PN and CLRD for each district were averaged for the same study period. Multivariate beta-regression analysis was performed to estimate the associations between air pollutant concentrations and mortality rates, after adjusting for confounding factors including altitude, population density, higher education rate, smoking rate, obesity rate, and gross regional domestic product per capita. Associations were also estimated for two subgrouping schema: Capital and non-Capital areas (77:172 districts) and urban and rural areas (168:81 districts). Results For IHD, higher SO2 concentrations were significantly associated with a higher mortality rate, whereas other air pollutants had null associations. For CVD, SO2 and PM10 concentrations were significantly associated with a higher mortality rate. For PN, O3 concentrations had significant positive associations with a higher mortality rate, while SO2, NO2, and PM10 concentrations had significant negative associations. For CLRD, O3 concentrations were associated with an increased mortality rate, while CO, NO2, and PM10 concentrations had negative associations. In the subgroup analysis, positive associations between SO2 concentrations and IHD mortality were consistently observed in all subgroups, while other pollutant-disease pairs showed null, or mixed associations. Conclusion Long-term exposure to high SO2 concentration was significantly and consistently associated with a high mortality rate nationwide and in Capital and non-Capital areas, and in urban and rural areas. Associations between other air pollutants and disease-related mortalities need to be investigated in further studies.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jeongeun Hwang ◽  
Jinhee Kwon ◽  
Hahn Yi ◽  
Hyun-Jin Bae ◽  
Miso Jang ◽  
...  

Abstract Background: The association between long-term exposure to air pollutants, including nitrogen dioxide (NO2), carbon monoxide (CO), sulfur dioxide (SO2), ozone (O3), and particulate matter 10 μm or less in diameter (PM10), and mortality by ischemic heart disease (IHD), cerebrovascular disease (CVD), pneumonia (PN), and chronic lower respiratory disease (CLRD) is unclear. We investigated whether living in an administrative district with heavy air pollution is associated with an increased risk of mortality by the diseases through an ecological study using South Korean administrative data over 19 years. Methods: A total of 249 Si-Gun-Gus, unit of administrative districts in South Korea were studied. In each district, the daily concentrations of CO, SO2, NO2, O3, and PM10 were averaged over 19 years (2001–2018). Age-adjusted mortality rates by IHD, CVD, PN and CLRD for each district were averaged for the same study period. Multivariate beta-regression analysis was performed to estimate the associations between air pollutant concentrations and mortality rates, after adjusting for confounding factors including altitude, population density, higher education rate, smoking rate, obesity rate, and gross regional domestic product per capita. Associations were also estimated for two subgrouping schema: Capital and non-Capital areas (77:172 districts) and urban and rural areas (168:81 districts). Results: For IHD, higher SO2 concentrations were significantly associated with a higher mortality rate, whereas other air pollutants had null associations. For CVD, SO2 and PM10 concentrations were significantly associated with a higher mortality rate. For PN, O3 concentrations had significant positive associations with a higher mortality rate, while SO2, NO2, and PM10 concentrations had significant negative associations. For CLRD, O3 concentrations were associated with an increased mortality rate, while CO, NO2, and PM10 concentrations had negative associations. In the subgroup analysis, positive associations between SO2 concentrations and IHD mortality were consistently observed in all subgroups, while other pollutant-disease pairs showed null, or mixed associations.Conclusion: Long-term exposure to high SO2 concentration was significantly and consistently associated with a high mortality rate nationwide and in Capital and non-Capital areas, and in urban and rural areas. Associations between other air pollutants and disease-related mortalities need to be investigated in further studies.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jeongeun Hwang ◽  
Jinhee Kwon ◽  
Hahn Yi ◽  
Hyun-Jin Bae ◽  
Miso Jang ◽  
...  

Abstract Background: The association between long-term exposure to air pollutants, including nitrogen dioxide (NO2), carbon monoxide (CO), sulfur dioxide (SO2), ozone (O3), and particulate matter 10 μm or less in diameter (PM10), and mortality by ischemic heart disease (IHD), cerebrovascular disease (CVD), pneumonia (PN), and chronic lower respiratory disease (CLRD) is unclear. We investigated whether living in an administrative district with heavy air pollution is associated with an increased risk of mortality by the diseases through an ecological study using South Korean administrative data over 19 years. Methods: A total of 249 Si-Gun-Gus, unit of administrative districts in South Korea were studied. In each district, the daily concentrations of CO, SO2, NO2, O3, and PM10 were averaged over 19 years (2001–2018). Age-adjusted mortality rates by IHD, CVD, PN and CLRD for each district were averaged for the same study period. Multivariate beta-regression analysis was performed to estimate the associations between air pollutant concentrations and mortality rates, after adjusting for confounding factors including altitude, population density, higher education rate, smoking rate, obesity rate, and gross regional domestic product per capita. Associations were also estimated for two subgrouping schema: Capital and non-Capital areas (77:172 districts) and urban and rural areas (168:81 districts). Results: For IHD, higher SO2 concentrations were significantly associated with a higher mortality rate, whereas other air pollutants had null associations. For CVD, SO2 and PM10 concentrations were significantly associated with a higher mortality rate. For PN, O3 concentrations had significant positive associations with a higher mortality rate, while SO2, NO2, and PM10 concentrations had significant negative associations. For CLRD, O3 concentrations were associated with an increased mortality rate, while CO, NO2, and PM10 concentrations had negative associations. In the subgroup analysis, positive associations between SO2 concentrations and IHD mortality were consistently observed in all subgroups, while other pollutant-disease pairs showed null, or mixed associations.Conclusion: Long-term exposure to high SO2 concentration was significantly and consistently associated with a high mortality rate nationwide and in Capital and non-Capital areas, and in urban and rural areas. Associations between other air pollutants and disease-related mortalities need to be investigated in further studies.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jeongeun Hwang ◽  
Jinhee Kwon ◽  
Hahn Yi ◽  
Hyun-Jin Bae ◽  
Miso Jang ◽  
...  

Abstract Background: The association between long-term exposure to air pollutants, including nitrogen dioxide (NO2), carbon monoxide (CO), sulfur dioxide (SO2), ozone (O3), and particulate matter 10 μm or less in diameter (PM10), and mortality by ischemic heart disease (IHD), cerebrovascular disease (CVD), pneumonia (PN), and chronic lower respiratory disease (CLRD) is unclear. We investigated whether living in an administrative district with heavy air pollution is associated with an increased risk of mortality by the diseases through an ecological study using South Korean administrative data over 19 years. Methods: A total of 249 Si-Gun-Gus, unit of administrative districts in South Korea were studied. In each district, the daily concentrations of CO, SO2, NO2, O3, and PM10 were averaged over 19 years (2001–2018). Age-adjusted mortality rates by IHD, CVD, PN and CLRD for each district were averaged for the same study period. Multivariate beta-regression analysis was performed to estimate the associations between air pollutant concentrations and mortality rates, after adjusting for confounding factors including altitude, population density, higher education rate, smoking rate, obesity rate, and gross regional domestic product per capita. Associations were also estimated for two subgrouping schema: Capital and non-Capital areas (77:172 districts) and urban and rural areas (168:81 districts). Results: For IHD, higher SO2 concentrations were significantly associated with a higher mortality rate, whereas other air pollutants had null associations. For CVD, SO2 and PM10 concentrations were significantly associated with a higher mortality rate. For PN, O3 concentrations had significant positive associations with a higher mortality rate, while SO2, NO2, and PM10 concentrations had significant negative associations. For CLRD, O3 concentrations were associated with an increased mortality rate, while CO, NO2, and PM10 concentrations had negative associations. In the subgroup analysis, positive associations between SO2 concentrations and IHD mortality were consistently observed in all subgroups, while other pollutant-disease pairs showed null, or mixed associations.Conclusion: Long-term exposure to high SO2 concentration was significantly and consistently associated with a high mortality rate nationwide and in Capital and non-Capital areas, and in urban and rural areas. Associations between other air pollutants and disease-related mortalities need to be investigated in further studies.


2020 ◽  
Vol 23 (7) ◽  
pp. 434-444
Author(s):  
Sahar Eftekharzadeh ◽  
Narges Ebrahimi ◽  
Mehrnoosh Samaei ◽  
Farnam Mohebi ◽  
Bahram Mohajer ◽  
...  

Background: The present study aims to assess the incidence and mortality rates of gynecological cancers and their changes from 1990 to 2016 at national and subnational levels in Iran. Methods: Annual estimates of incidence and mortality for gynecological cancers from 1990 to 2016 at national and subnational levels were generated as part of a larger project entitled National and Subnational Burden of Diseases, Injuries, and Risk Factors (NASBOD). After the precise processing of data extracted from the Iran Cancer Registry, annual age-standardized incidence and mortality rates were calculated for each cancer, province, year and age group during the period of the study. Results: In 2016, gynecological cancers constituted 8.0% of new cancer cases among women of all ages compared to 3.7% of new cases of cancer among women in 1990. The incidence rate of gynecological cancers has increased from 2.5 (0.9-5.6) per 100000 women in 1990 to 12.3 (9.3–15.7) per 100000 women in 2016, and the most common gynecological cancer has changed from cervical cancer in 1990 to corpus uteri cancer in 2016. Age-standardized incidence rates of ovarian, corpus uteri and vulvovaginal cancers increased from 1.3 (0.5–2.4), 1.7 (0.6–3.0), and 0.3 (0.0–0.7) in 1990 to 4.4 (3.6–5.2), 9.9 (6.8–13.4), and 0.6 (0.2–1.0) in 2016, respectively, showing a 3.3, 5.8 and 1.7-fold increase during this period. Age-standardized incidence rate of cervical cancer was 2.4 (1.7–3.3) cases per 100000 women in 2016 and did not differ significantly from the beginning of the study. An overall reduction was seen in national mortality to incidence ratios (MIR) from 2000 to 2015. Conclusion: The incidence rates of all gynecological cancers in different provinces have shown a converging trend that could indicate that attempts toward health equality have been effective. The declining trend of MIR could be interpreted as advancements in detection of cancer in its early stages and also improvements in treatments, in turn reflecting improvements in access to and quality of care.


2020 ◽  
Vol 38 (15_suppl) ◽  
pp. 12075-12075
Author(s):  
En Cheng ◽  
Donghoon Lee ◽  
Rulla M Tamimi ◽  
Susan Hankinson ◽  
Walter C Willett ◽  
...  

12075 Background: Few studies have investigated long-term survival and causes of death among men and women diagnosed with major cancers. Methods: We estimated overall and cause-specific mortality rates for men diagnosed with prostate, lung and bronchus, colon and rectum, bladder, and melanoma cancer in the Health Professionals Follow-up Study between 1986-2010+, and women with breast, lung and bronchus, colon and rectum, uterine corpus, thyroid, and ovarian cancer in the Nurses’ Health Study (NHS) between 1976-2010+ and NHS II between 1989-2010+. Kaplan-Meier curves were used to calculate cumulative mortality rates at 5, 10, 15, 20, and 30 years and competing risk methods were used to calculate cumulative cancer-specific mortality rates of major causes at 5, 10, 15, 20, and 30 years. Additionally, among women 40-year mortality rates were calculated. Results: Except for lung and ovarian, most major cancer patients are more likely to die from other causes than the index cancer. We observed two basic patterns for cumulative cancer-specific mortality rates. The first pattern is greatly diminished risk of index cancer-specific mortality 10 years or more following diagnosis - for colorectal cancer, cancer-specific mortality rate increased by less than 3% between 10 to 30- or 40-year following diagnosis (among men, from 35.1% to 36.7%; among women, from 34.8% to 37.7%), and this pattern also applied to bladder, melanoma, or uterine corpus cancer. The second one is sustained, but nevertheless low, excess risk - prostate cancer-specific mortality rate increased gradually and almost linearly from 5.3% to 15.1% after diagnosis from 5 to 30 years, and for breast cancer, it increased likewise from 7.2% to 18.9% after diagnosis from 5 to 40 years. Conclusions: Except for lung and ovarian cancers, patients diagnosed with major cancers were more likely to die from causes other than cancer. Colorectal, bladder, melanoma or uterine corpus cancer patients surviving more than 10 years after diagnosis are unlikely to ever die from that disease. [Table: see text]


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lars Helander

AbstractSeveral recent studies have found troubling links between air pollution and both incidence and mortality of COVID-19, the pandemic disease caused by the virus SARS-CoV-2. Here, we investigate whether such a link can be found also in Sweden, a country with low population density and a relatively good air quality in general, with low background levels of important pollutants such as PM2.5 and NO2. The investigation is carried out by relating normalized emission levels of several air pollutants to normalized COVID-19 deaths at the municipality level, after applying a sieve function using an empirically determined threshold value to filter out noise. We find a fairly strong correlation for PM2.5, PM10 and SO2, and a moderate one for NOx. We find no correlation neither for CO, nor (as expected) for CO2. Our results are statistically significant and the calculations are simple and easily verifiable. Since the study considers only emission levels of air pollutants and not measurements of air quality, climatic and meteorological factors (such as average wind speeds) can trivially be ruled out as confounders. Finally, we also show that although there are small positive correlations between population density and COVID-19 deaths in the studied municipalities (which are for the most part rural and non densely populated) they are either weak or not statistically significant.


2016 ◽  
Vol 1 (3) ◽  
pp. 51
Author(s):  
Mokhtar Soheylizad ◽  
Kamyar Mansori ◽  
Erfan Ayubi ◽  
Ensiyeh Jenabi ◽  
Yousef Veisani ◽  
...  

Introduction: Liver cancer (LC) is one of the most common malignant tumors worldwide which have been a major public health challenge worldwide. This study aimed to identify the global effect of HDI in the incidence and mortality rates of liver LC. Material and Methods: Data about the incidence and mortality rate of LC for the year 2012 was obtained from the global cancer project for 172 countries. Data about the HDI and other indices were obtained for 169 countries from the United Nations Development Programme database in 2012. Linear regression models were used for assessment of the HDI effect on LC occurrence rates. Inequality in the age-specific incidence and mortality rates (ASR) of LC according to the HDI were assessed by using the concentration index.Results: Linear regression model showed that increasing of HDI had a negative effect on the increase in both incidence (B=-12.2, P=0.03) and mortality (B=-12.7, P=0.015) rates of LC. The mean of life expectancy at birth, mean years of schooling, GNI per capita, percent of urbanization, and age-standardized obesity had also a negative effect on increasing in both incidence and mortality rates.Conclusion: incidence and mortality rate of LC are significantly concentrated in regions with medium and low HDI. The negative relationship between LC incidence and mortality with HDI and its component can be considered as targets for prevention and treatment intervention or tracking geographic disparities.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kaixu Bai ◽  
Ke Li ◽  
Mingliang Ma ◽  
Kaitao Li ◽  
Zhengqiang Li ◽  
...  

Abstract. Developing a big data analytics framework for generating a Long-term Gap-free High-resolution Air Pollutants concentration dataset (abbreviated as LGHAP) is of great significance for environmental management and earth system science analysis. By synergistically integrating multimodal aerosol data acquired from diverse sources via a tensor flow based data fusion method, a gap-free aerosol optical depth (AOD) dataset with daily 1-km resolution covering the period of 2000–2020 in China was generated. Specifically, data gaps in daily AOD imageries from MODIS aboard Terra were reconstructed based on a set of AOD data tensors acquired from satellites, numerical analysis, and in situ air quality data via integrative efforts of spatial pattern recognition for high dimensional gridded image analysis and knowledge transfer in statistical data mining. To our knowledge, this is the first long-term gap-free high resolution AOD dataset in China, from which spatially contiguous PM2.5 and PM10 concentrations were estimated using an ensemble learning approach. Ground validation results indicate that the LGHAP AOD data are in a good agreement with in situ AOD observations from AERONET, with R of 0.91 and RMSE equaling to 0.21. Meanwhile, PM2.5 and PM10 estimations also agreed well with ground measurements, with R of 0.95 and 0.94 and RMSE of 12.03 and 19.56 μg m−3, respectively. Overall, the LGHAP provides a suite of long-term gap free gridded maps with high-resolution to better examine aerosol changes in China over the past two decades, from which three distinct variation periods of haze pollution were revealed in China. Additionally, the proportion of population exposed to unhealthy PM2.5 was increased from 50.60 % in 2000 to 63.81 % in 2014 across China, which was then drastically reduced to 34.03 % in 2020. Overall, the generated LGHAP aerosol dataset has a great potential to trigger multidisciplinary applications in earth observations, climate change, public health, ecosystem assessment, and environmental management. The daily resolution AOD, PM2.5, and PM10 datasets can be publicly accessed at https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.5652257 (Bai et al., 2021a), https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.5652265 (Bai et al., 2021b), and https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.5652263 (Bai et al., 2021c), respectively. Meanwhile, monthly and annual mean datasets can be found at https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.5655797 (Bai et al., 2021d) and https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.5655807 (Bai et al., 2021e), respectively. Python, Matlab, R, and IDL codes were also provided to help users read and visualize these data.


2021 ◽  
Vol 20 (4) ◽  
pp. 30-38
Author(s):  
A. A. Mordovskii ◽  
A. A. Aksarin ◽  
A. M. Parsadanyan ◽  
M. D. Ter-Ovanesov ◽  
P. P. Troyan

The aim of the study was to assess the lung cancer incidence and mortality in the Khanty-mansi autonomous okrug – Yugra during the period 1999–2019.Material and methods. We have studied the lung cancer incidence and mortality rates in Yugra over the last 21 years (1999–2019).Results. In Yugra, the lung cancer (lc) incidence rates increased by 24.7 % from 1999 to 2019, demonstrating higher rates than those in the Russian Federation (RF), where lc incidence rates decreased by 20.3 %. In 2019, the age-standardized incidence rate was 30.5 per 100,000 (22.7 for RF); the age-standardized mortality rate was 16.4 per 100,000 (18.4 for RF). The mortality rate from lc in Yugra was 9.6 times higher in males than in females (35.5 vs. 3.7 per 100,000). The cross-correlation analysis revealed a correlation between the lc incidence/mortality and air pollution in Yugra. The main carcinogens in Yugra were formaldehyde, phenol, nitrogen dioxide, and benzapyrene. The assessment of the relationship between the age-standardized lc incidence/mortality rates and the amount of pollutants emitted into the atmosphere revealed that their synergistic effects with tobacco smoking can double the risk of lung cancer development. The increase in the number of chest computed tomography (ct) scans performed in the context of the pandemic caused by covid-19 infection led to an 18 % increase in the number of incidentally detected pulmonary nodules, of which 9 % of cases were diagnosed as lc.Conclusion. The lc incidence rates in Yugra tended to increase. The high rate of lc incidence is caused by man-made and natural factors, which requires the implementation of a screening program with the use of low-dose computed tomography in order to improve the early detection and prevention of this disease.


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