Objective: to re-evaluate the meaning of attributable risk assessing the event advancement as an individual effect indicator.
Design: mortality descriptive study of cardiovascular and respiratory causes in two populations exposed to different emission levels from a coal-fired power plant.
Setting and participants: people residing in 23 Italian municipalities (100,725 subjects) aged 35-84 years observed from 2000 to 2007.
Main outcome measures: age-specific death rates and death anticipation by age.
Results: a higher mortality among the exposed corresponds to a median death anticipation from 25 to 20 months among people aged 65-74 and of 6 months for people aged 75-84.
Conclusion: for the set of the considered causes of death, a higher mortality among the exposed corresponds to a median anticipation of all deaths occurred among exposed people.