1. Systematic review of the association between long-term exposure to fine particulate matter and mortality
- Author
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Robyn L. Prueitt, Lariah Marie Edwards, Julie E. Goodman, Jieqiong Zhou, and Wenchao Li
- Subjects
Air Pollutants ,medicine.medical_specialty ,Study quality ,Fine particulate ,Health, Toxicology and Mutagenesis ,Public Health, Environmental and Occupational Health ,Environmental Exposure ,General Medicine ,010501 environmental sciences ,Particulates ,01 natural sciences ,Pollution ,Term (time) ,03 medical and health sciences ,0302 clinical medicine ,Air Pollution ,Environmental health ,Epidemiology ,medicine ,Environmental science ,Particulate Matter ,030212 general & internal medicine ,Mortality ,0105 earth and related environmental sciences - Abstract
We used a transparent systematic review framework based on best practices for evaluating study quality and integrating evidence to conduct a review of the available epidemiology studies evaluating associations between long-term exposure to ambient concentrations of PM2.5 and mortality (all-cause and non-accidental) conducted in North America. We found that while there is some consistency across studies for reporting positive associations, these associations are weak and several important methodological issues have led to uncertainties with regard to the evidence from these studies, including potential confounding by measured and unmeasured factors, exposue measurement error, and model misspecification. These uncertainties provide a plausible, alternative explanation to causality for the weakly positive findings across studies. Using a causality framework that incorporates best practices for making causal determinations, we concluded that the evidence for a causal relationship between long-term exposure to ambient PM2.5 concentrations and mortality from these studies is inadequate.
- Published
- 2021