Associations of London, England, daily mortality with particulate matter, sulfur dioxide, and acidic aerosol pollution

Journal Article · Thu Jul 01 00:00:00 EDT 1993 · Archives of Environmental Health; (United States)

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1080/00039896.1993.9940362· OSTI ID:6113276

Ito, K; Thurston, G D; Hayes, C; Lippmann, M ^[1]

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1. New York Univ. Medical Center, Tuxedo (United States)

During the extreme pollution episodes of 1952 and 1962 in London, England, excesses in daily mortality were clearly evident. In this study, we examined daily British Smoke, sulfur dioxide, acid aerosols, and weather variables for their short-term associations with daily mortality in the more typical (nonepisodic) winters of 1965-1972. Consideration of the acid aerosol data was of special interest because this chemical component has been suspected as a causal agent in past episodes. Temporal lag structures between the variables were examined after removal of long-term components from each series in order to obtain rational cross-correlations. Significant associations between same-day and lagged pollution variables and mortality were found. Alternative regression models with pollution and weather variables were also developed. The coefficients obtained were applied to the 1962 pollution episode to examine the continuity of the estimated slopes. The pollution-predicted deaths fit the observed deaths well, which supports the applicability of such deviation-derived coefficients to the absolute scale. These models were also employed to estimate mean excess daily deaths attributed hypothetically to air pollution. On average, mean effect ranged from 2-7% of all deaths during the nonepisodic winters in Greater London, but the 95% confidence intervals of these estimates overlapped for all model specifications examined. This estimated pollutant mixture effect cannot be attributed to a particular pollutant because of a lack of quantitative information on the relative downward biases caused by both analytical errors and errors in the spatial representativeness of each respective pollution index.

• OSTI ID: 6113276
• Journal Information: Archives of Environmental Health; (United States), Journal Name: Archives of Environmental Health; (United States) Vol. 48:4; ISSN 0003-9896; ISSN AEHLAU
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

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AEROSOLS
AIR POLLUTION
BIOLOGICAL EFFECTS
CHALCOGENIDES
COLLOIDS
CORRELATIONS
DATA ANALYSIS
DEVELOPED COUNTRIES
DISPERSIONS
EPIDEMIOLOGY
EUROPE
FORECASTING
MATHEMATICAL MODELS
MATHEMATICS
MORTALITY
OXIDES
OXYGEN COMPOUNDS
POLLUTION
REGRESSION ANALYSIS
SEASONS
SOLS
STATISTICAL MODELS
STATISTICS
SULFUR COMPOUNDS
SULFUR DIOXIDE
SULFUR OXIDES
UNITED KINGDOM
WEATHER
WESTERN EUROPE