Grantee Research Project Results

An Evaluation of Confounders in PM10/Mortality Associations

EPA Grant Number: R825271
Title: An Evaluation of Confounders in PM10/Mortality Associations
Investigators:
Institution: New York University Medical Center
EPA Project Officer: Chung, Serena
Project Period: November 25, 1996 through November 24, 1999 (Extended to November 24, 2000)
Project Amount: $363,394
RFA: Air Quality (1996) RFA Text | Recipients Lists
Research Category: Air Quality and Air Toxics , Air

Description:

The overall goal of this research is to characterize and determine the role of the potential confounding variables and co-factors in the particulate matter (PM) and mortality associations reported in past time-series epidemiological studies. Temporal and/or spatial relationships among weather, air pollution, census, and mortality variables will be determined using: 1) U.S. EPA's Aerometric Information Retrieval System (AIRS); 2) National Climatic Center's Surface Hourly Observations; 3) U.S. Census Bureau's 1990 Census data; 4) U.S. Census Bureau's 1992 Topologically Integrated Geographic Encoding Reference (TIGER) system; and 5) National Center for Health Statistics' mortality records. The analysis will be conducted for major U.S. cities where data from multiple air monitoring stations are available. These cities include: Chicago, IL; Detroit, MI; Houston, TX; Minneapolis, MN; and, St. Louis, MO. This research will produce: 1) detailed characterizations of air monitoring stations' locations in relation to population distributions; 2) determinations of the spatial variability (i.e., 'error' in exposure estimate) of each pollution and weather variable among multiple stations within each city, metropolitan area, or region; 3) examinations of temporal associations among the weather and air pollution variables to characterize the sequence of events leading to the possible pollution/mortality associations; and 4) alternative mortality regression models, including examinations of possible synergistic effects and cause-specificity checks, to obtain a range of risk estimates for PM10 and other pollution and weather variables. This project will thereby provide information crucial to the evaluation of the risk estimates of PM10 and other criteria pollutants.

Publications and Presentations:

Publications have been submitted on this project: View all 7 publications for this project

Journal Articles:

Journal Articles have been submitted on this project: View all 2 journal articles for this project

Supplemental Keywords:

air, ambient air, atmosphere, ozone, exposure, effects, health effects, human health, particulates, oxidants, epidemiology, Northeast, New York, NY, Region 2., RFA, Health, Air, Scientific Discipline, Geographic Area, Ecological Risk Assessment, Risk Assessments, State, particulate matter, Epidemiology, Atmospheric Sciences, air toxics, MN, particle size, Missouri (MO), atmospheric chemistry, co-factors, human exposure, mortality, PM10, Acute health effects, copollutant exposures, epidemiological studies, particulates, confounding variables, Illinois (IL), Minnesota, chronic health effects, synergistic effects, Michigan (MI), ambient air quality, human health effects, acute toxicity

Progress and Final Reports:

The perspectives, information and conclusions conveyed in research project abstracts, progress reports, final reports, journal abstracts and journal publications convey the viewpoints of the principal investigator and may not represent the views and policies of ORD and EPA. Conclusions drawn by the principal investigators have not been reviewed by the Agency.