The Effect of Dose and Timing of Dose on the Association between Airborne Particles and Survival
Citation
Schwartz, Joel, Brent Coull, Francine Laden, and Louise Ryan. 2008. The Effect of Dose and Timing of Dose on the Association between Airborne Particles and Survival. Environmental Health Perspectives 116(1): 64-69.Abstract
BACKGROUND: Understanding the shape of the concentration–response curve for particles is importantfor public health, and lack of such understanding was recently cited by U.S. Environmental
Protection Agency (EPA) as a reason for not tightening the standards. Similarly, the delay between
changes in exposure and changes in health is also important in public health decision making. We
addressed these issues using an extended follow-up of the Harvard Six Cities Study.
METHODS: Cox proportional hazards models were fit controlling for smoking, body mass index,
and other covariates. Two approaches were used. First, we used penalized splines, which fit a flexible
functional form to the concentration response to examine its shape, and chose the degrees of
freedom for the curve based on Akaike’s information criterion. Because the uncertainties around
the resultant curve do not reflect the uncertainty in model choice, we also used model averaging as
an alternative approach, where multiple models are fit explicitly and averaged, weighted by their
probability of being correct given the data. We examined the lag relationship by model averaging
across a range of unconstrained distributed lag models.
RESULTS: We found that the concentration–response curve is linear, clearly continuing below the
current U.S. standard of 15 μg/m3, and that the effects of changes in exposure on mortality are seen
within two years.
CONCLUSIONS: Reduction in particle concentrations below U.S. EPA standards would increase life
expectancy.
Terms of Use
This article is made available under the terms and conditions applicable to Other Posted Material, as set forth at http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:HUL.InstRepos:dash.current.terms-of-use#LAACitable link to this page
http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:HUL.InstRepos:4887121
Collections
- HMS Scholarly Articles [17922]
- SPH Scholarly Articles [6362]
Contact administrator regarding this item (to report mistakes or request changes)