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Dust Storms in the United States are Associated with Increased Cardiovascular Mortality
Citation:
Crooks, J., W. Cascio, M. Percy, J. Reyes, L. Neas, AND E Hilborn. Dust Storms in the United States are Associated with Increased Cardiovascular Mortality. American Heart Association Scientific Sessions 2015, Orlando, FL, November 07 - 11, 2015.
Impact/Purpose:
Dust storms are relevant to the Agency because they have been shown to have health impacts in the United States and other counties and because they are thought likely to increase in frequency as a result of anthropogenic climate change. The purpose of the present manuscript is to examine the association between dust storms and non-accidental mortality over the entire western U.S. and in the two states with the largest number of dust storms, Arizona and California. Our health study uses data on 141 dust storms reported in the U.S. National Weather Service storm database spanning 13 years. We looked at total non-accidental mortality as well as three non-overlapping mortality sub-categories: cardiovascular, respiratory, and other non-accidental. We found a 7.4% increase in total non-accidental at a 2 day lag, a 6.7% increase at 3 day lag, and a mean daily increase of 2.7% over lags 0-5 compared to control days. Our results were robust against inclusion of a variety of confounder variables, including temperature, precipitation, and PM10. Effects were also found in California and Arizona, as well as for the whole U.S. for cardiovascular mortality and other non-accidental mortality
Description:
Background: Extreme weather events such as dust storms are predicted to become more frequent as the global climate warms through the 21st century. Studies of Asian, Saharan, Arabian, and Australian dust storms have found associations with cardiovascular and total non-accidental mortality and hospitalizations for stroke. However, the only population-level epidemiological work on dust storms in the United States was focused on a single small metropolitan area (Spokane, WA), and it is uncertain whether its null results are representative of the country as a whole. Objective: To estimate the association between dust storms (N=141) and daily cardiovascular mortality in the United States.Methods: Dust storm incidence data, including date and approximate location, as well as meteorological station observations, were taken from the U.S. National Weather Service. County-level mortality data for the years 1993-2005 were acquired from the National Center for Health Statistics. Ambient particulate matter monitor concentrations were obtained from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Inference was performed used conditional logistic regression models under a case-crossover design while accounting for the nonlinear effect of temperature. Results: We found a 9.5% increase in cardiovascular mortality at a two-day lag (95% CI: [0.31%,19.5%], p = 0.042). The results were robust to adjusting for heat waves and ambient particulate matterPM concentrations. Analysis of storms occurring only on days with <0.1 inches of precipitation strengthened these results and in addition yielded a mean daily increase of 4.0% across lags 0-5 (95% CI: [0.07%,20.8%], p = 0.046). In Arizona, the U.S. state with the largest number of storms, we observed a 13.0% increase at a three-day lag (CI: [0.40%,27.1%], p = 0.043).Conclusions: Dust storms in the U.S. are associated with increases in lagged cardiovascular mortality. This has implications for the development of risk communication, public health advisories and suggests that further public health interventions may be needed.Disclaimer: This work does not represent official U.S. Environmental Protection Agency policy.