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PM source apportionment and health effects. 3. Investigation of inter-method variations in associations between estimated source contributions of PM2.5 and daily mortality in Phoenix, AZ

Journal of Exposure Science & Environmental Epidemiology volume 16, pages 311–320 (2006)Cite this article

Abstract

As part of an EPA-sponsored workshop to investigate the use of source apportionment in health effects analyses, the associations between the participant's estimated source contributions of PM2.5 for Phoenix, AZ for the period from 1995–1997 and cardiovascular and total nonaccidental mortality were analyzed using Poisson generalized linear models (GLM). The base model controlled for extreme temperatures, relative humidity, day of week, and time trends using natural spline smoothers. The same mortality model was applied to all of the apportionment results to provide a consistent comparison across source components and investigators/methods. Of the apportioned anthropogenic PM2.5 source categories, secondary sulfate, traffic, and copper smelter-derived particles were most consistently associated with cardiovascular mortality. The sources with the largest cardiovascular mortality effect size were secondary sulfate (median estimate=16.0% per 5th-to-95th percentile increment at lag 0 day among eight investigators/methods) and traffic (median estimate=13.2% per 5th-to-95th percentile increment at lag 1 day among nine investigators/methods). For total mortality, the associations were weaker. Sea salt was also found to be associated with both total and cardiovascular mortality, but at 5 days lag. Fine particle soil and biomass burning factors were not associated with increased risks. Variations in the maximum effect lag varied by source category suggesting that past analyses considering only single lags of PM2.5 may have underestimated health impact contributions at different lags. Further research is needed on the possibility that different PM2.5 source components may have different effect lag structure. There was considerable consistency in the health effects results across source apportionments in their effect estimates and their lag structures. Variations in results across investigators/methods were small compared to the variations across source categories. These results indicate reproducibility of source apportionment results across investigative groups and support applicability of these methods to effects studies. However, future research will also need to investigate a number of other important issues including accuracy of results.

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Acknowledgements

The Workshop was organized under the auspices of the participating U.S. EPA PM Health Effects Research Centers (grant R827351 at NYU, R827355 at the University of Washington, R827353 at Harvard University, and R927354 at the University of Rochester). We thank individual researchers who participated in this workshop, often on their own time and resources. Support for the organization and administration of the Workshop was also provided by the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA grant 375-34215). We also thank Gary Norris of the U.S. EPA for providing us with the Phoenix AZ data, and William Wilson of the U.S. EPA for providing us with temperature and relative humidity data for Phoenix, AZ for the days for which data were not available from NERL.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Environmental and Occupational Health Sciences, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA

    Therese F Mar & Jane Q Koenig

  2. Nelson Institute of Environmental Medicine, New York University School of Medicine, Tuxedo Park, New York, USA

    Kazuhiko Ito, Ramona Lall & George D Thurston

  3. Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA

    Timothy V Larson

  4. Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, Brigham Young University, Provo, Utah, USA

    Delbert J Eatough

  5. Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Southern California University, Los Angeles, California, USA

    Ronald C Henry

  6. Center for Air Resources Engineering and Science, Clarkson University, Potsdam, New York, USA

    Eugene Kim & Philip K Hopke

  7. Department of Environmental Health, Harvard School of Public Health, Boston, Massachusetts, USA

    Francine Laden

  8. National Health & Environmental Effects Research Laboratory, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Chapel Hill, North Carolina, USA

    Lucas Neas

  9. Institute of Epidemiology, GSF Focus Network Aerosols and Health, GSF National Research Center for Environment and Health, Neuherberg, Germany

    Matthias Stölzel

  10. Department of Physical Sciences, University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland

    Pentti Paatero

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  1. Therese F Mar
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  2. Kazuhiko Ito
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Correspondence to Philip K Hopke.

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Mar, T., Ito, K., Koenig, J. et al. PM source apportionment and health effects. 3. Investigation of inter-method variations in associations between estimated source contributions of PM2.5 and daily mortality in Phoenix, AZ. J Expo Sci Environ Epidemiol 16, 311–320 (2006). https://doi.org/10.1038/sj.jea.7500465

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/sj.jea.7500465

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