Long-term exposure to fine particle elemental components and natural and cause-specific mortality—a pooled analysis of eight european cohorts within the ELAPSE project

ELAPSE

doi:https://doi.org/10.1289/EHP8368

Long-term exposure to fine particle elemental components and natural and cause-specific mortality—a pooled analysis of eight european cohorts within the ELAPSE project

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Long-term exposure to fine particle elemental components and natural and cause-specific mortality—a pooled analysis of eight european cohorts within the ELAPSE project

ELAPSE

(2021) Environmental Health Perspectives, volume 129, issue 4, pp. 1 - 12

(Article)

Abstract

BACKGROUND: Inconsistent associations between long-term exposure to particles with an aerodynamic diameter ≤ 2.5 μ m [fine particulate matter ( PM 2.5 )] components and mortality have been reported, partly related to challenges in exposure assessment. OBJECTIVES: We investigated the associations between long-term exposure to PM 2.5 elemental components ... read more and mortality in a large pooled European cohort; to compare health effects of PM 2.5 components estimated with two exposure modeling approaches, namely, supervised linear regression (SLR) and random forest (RF) algorithms. METHODS: We pooled data from eight European cohorts with 323,782 participants, average age 49 y at baseline (1985-2005). Residential exposure to 2010 annual average concentration of eight PM 2.5 components [copper (Cu), iron (Fe), potassium (K), nickel (Ni), sulfur (S), silicon (Si), vanadium (V), and zinc (Zn)] was estimated with Europe-wide SLR and RF models at a 100 × 100 m scale. We applied Cox proportional hazards models to investigate the associations between components and natural and cause-specific mortality. In addition, two-pollutant analyses were conducted by adjusting each component for PM 2.5 mass and nitrogen dioxide ( NO 2 ) separately. RESULTS: We observed 46,640 natural-cause deaths with 6,317,235 person-years and an average follow-up of 19.5 y. All SLR-modeled components were statistically significantly associated with natural-cause mortality in single-pollutant models with hazard ratios (HRs) from 1.05 to 1.27. Similar HRs were observed for RF-modeled Cu, Fe, K, S, V, and Zn with wider confidence intervals (CIs). HRs for SLR-modeled Ni, S, Si, V, and Zn remained above unity and (almost) significant after adjustment for both PM 2.5 and NO 2 . HRs only remained (almost) significant for RF-modeled K and V in two-pollutant models. The HRs for V were 1.03 (95% CI: 1.02, 1.05) and 1.06 (95% CI: 1.02, 1.10) for SLR- and RF-modeled exposures, respectively, per 2 ng / m 3 , adjusting for PM 2.5 mass. Associations with cause-specific mortality were less consistent in two-pollutant models. CONCLUSION: Long-term exposure to V in PM 2.5 was most consistently associated with increased mortality. Associations for the other components were weaker for exposure modeled with RF than SLR in two-pollutant models. https://doi.org/10.1289/EHP8368.

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Keywords: Air Pollutants/analysis, Air Pollution/analysis, Cause of Death, Cohort Studies, Environmental Exposure/analysis, Humans, Middle Aged, Particulate Matter/analysis, Journal Article, Meta-Analysis, Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't, Research Support, U.S. Gov't, Non-P.H.S.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1289/EHP8368

ISSN: 0091-6765

Publisher: Public Health Services, US Dept of Health and Human Services

Note: Funding Information: The research described in this article was conducted under contract to the Health Effects Institute (HEI), an organization jointly funded by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) (Assistance Award No. R-82811201) and certain motor vehicle and engine manufacturers. The contents of this article do not necessarily reflect the views of the HEI, or its sponsors, nor do they necessarily reflect the views and policies of the U.S. EPA or motor vehicle and engine manufacturers. The HEI reviewed and approved the study design. HEI was not involved in data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript. Funding Information: The Swedish Twin Registry is managed by the Karolinska Institutet and receives funding through the Swedish Research Council under grant 2017-00641. The Cooperative Health Research in the Region of Augsburg research platform and the Monitoring Trends and Determinants on Cardiovascular Diseases Augsburg studies were initiated and financed by the Helmholtz Zentrum München, German Research Center for Environmental Health, which is funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education, Science, Research, and Technology and by the State of Bavaria. Since 2000, the myocardial infarction (MI) data collection has been co-financed by the German Federal Ministry of Health and Social Security to provide population-based MI morbidity data for the official German Health Report (https:// www.gbe-bund.de). This work was also supported by a scholarship under the State Scholarship Fund by the China Scholarship Council (File No. 201606010329). None of the abovementioned funding agencies was involved in the study design, data analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript. Funding Information: The contributions of the authors were as follows: B.B., G.H., and J.C.: study conceptualization and design; G.H. and B.B.: principal investigators of the ELAPSE project; J.C.: statistical analysis and manuscript writing; G.H. and B.B.: supervision, manuscript review and editing; G.H., B.B., J.C., and MS: ELAPSE project coordination, preparing pooled data for analyses, and providing support with the access to pooled cohort data; S.R., E.S., and K.K.: contribution of statistical analyses strategy and scripts for the statistical analyses; K.d.H., J.C., and G.H.: exposure assessment. All authors contributed to the interpretation of the results. All authors read and revised the manuscript for the important intellectual content and approved the final draft of the manuscript. We thank M. Tewis for the data management tasks in creating the pooled cohort database. The research described in this article was conducted under contract to the Health Effects Institute (HEI), an organization jointly funded by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) (Assistance Award No. R-82811201) and certain motor vehicle and engine manufacturers. The contents of this article do not necessarily reflect the views of the HEI, or its sponsors, nor do they necessarily reflect the views and policies of the U.S. EPA or motor vehicle and engine manufacturers. The HEI reviewed and approved the study design. HEI was not involved in data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript. The Swedish Twin Registry is managed by the Karolinska Institutet and receives funding through the Swedish Research Council under grant 2017-00641. The Cooperative Health Research in the Region of Augsburg research platform and the Monitoring Trends and Determinants on Cardiovascular Diseases Augsburg studies were initiated and financed by the Helmholtz Zentrum München, German Research Center for Environmental Health, which is funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education, Science, Research, and Technology and by the State of Bavaria. Since 2000, the myocardial infarction (MI) data collection has been co-financed by the German Federal Ministry of Health and Social Security to provide population-based MI morbidity data for the official German Health Report (https:// www.gbe-bund.de). This work was also supported by a scholarship under the State Scholarship Fund by the China Scholarship Council (File No. 201606010329). None of the abovementioned funding agencies was involved in the study design, data analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript. Publisher Copyright: © 2021, Public Health Services, US Dept of Health and Human Services. All rights reserved.

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