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Acute effects of ambient ozone on mortality in Europe and North America: results from the APHENA study

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Abstract

The “Air Pollution and Health: A Combined European and North American Approach” (APHENA) project is a collaborative analysis of multi-city time-series data on the association between air pollution and adverse health outcomes. The main objective of APHENA was to examine the coherence of findings of time-series studies relating short-term fluctuations in air pollution levels to mortality and morbidity in 125 cities in Europe, the US, and Canada. Multi-city time-series analysis was conducted using a two-stage approach. We used Poisson regression models controlling for overdispersion with either penalized or natural splines to adjust for seasonality. Hierarchical models were used to obtain an overall estimate of excess mortality associated with ozone and to assess potential effect modification. Potential effect modifiers were city-level characteristics related to exposure to other ambient air pollutants, weather, socioeconomic status, and the vulnerability of the population. Regionally pooled risk estimates from Europe and the US were similar; those from Canada were substantially higher. The pooled estimated excess relative risk associated with a 10 μg/m3 increase in 1 h daily maximum O3 was 0.26 % (95 % CI, 0.15 %, 0.37 %). Across regions, there was little consistent indication of effect modification by age or other effect modifiers considered in the analysis. The findings from APHENA on the effects of O3 on mortality in the general population were comparable with previously reported results and relatively robust to the method of data analysis. Overall, there was no indication of strong effect modification by age or ecologic variables considered in the analysis.

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Acknowledgments

Funding was provided through a contract with the Health Effects Institute. The views expressed in this paper are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Health Effects Institute (HEI) or its sponsors. The authors state that they have no conflicts of interest.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Biostatistics, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, 615 N Wolfe St, Baltimore, MD, 21205, USA

    Roger D. Peng & Luu Pham

  2. Department of Hygiene, Epidemiology, and Medical Statistics, University of Athens Medical School, Athens, Greece

    Evangelia Samoli, Giota Touloumi & Klea Katsouyanni

  3. Department of Biostatistics, Harvard School of Public Health, Boston, MA, USA

    Francesca Dominici

  4. McLaughlin Center for Population Health Risk Assessment, University of Ottawa, Ottawa, ON, Canada

    Tim Ramsay, Richard T. Burnett & Daniel Krewski

  5. Environmental Health and Consumer Products Branch, Health Canada, Ottawa, ON, Canada

    Richard T. Burnett

  6. Environmental Health Department, National Institute of Public Health Surveillance (InVS), Saint-Maurice Cedex, France

    Alain Le Tertre

  7. Health Effects Institute, Boston, MA, USA

    Aaron Cohen

  8. Division of Population Health Sciences and Education, MRC-HPA Centre for Environment and Health, St George’s, University of London, London, UK

    Richard W. Atkinson & H. Ross Anderson

  9. Environmental Research Group, MRC-HPA Centre for Environment and Health, King’s College, London, UK

    H. Ross Anderson

  10. Department of Preventive Medicine, Keck School of Medicine, and USC Institute for Global Health, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA, USA

    Jonathan M. Samet

Authors
  1. Roger D. Peng
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  2. Evangelia Samoli
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  3. Luu Pham
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  4. Francesca Dominici
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  5. Giota Touloumi
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  6. Tim Ramsay
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  7. Richard T. Burnett
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  8. Daniel Krewski
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  9. Alain Le Tertre
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  10. Aaron Cohen
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  11. Richard W. Atkinson
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  12. H. Ross Anderson
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  13. Klea Katsouyanni
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  14. Jonathan M. Samet
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Roger D. Peng.

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Peng, R.D., Samoli, E., Pham, L. et al. Acute effects of ambient ozone on mortality in Europe and North America: results from the APHENA study. Air Qual Atmos Health 6, 445–453 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11869-012-0180-9

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11869-012-0180-9

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