Long-term exposure to elemental components of fine particulate matter and all-natural and cause-specific mortality in a Danish nationwide administrative cohort study

Rina So; Jie Chen; Massimo Stafoggia; Kees de Hoogh; Klea Katsouyanni; Danielle Vienneau; Evangelia Samoli; Sophia Rodopoulou; Steffen Loft; Youn-Hee Lim; Rudi G J Westendorp; Heresh Amini; Thomas Cole-Hunter; Marie Bergmann; Seyed Mahmood Taghavi Shahri; Jiawei Zhang; Matija Maric; Laust H Mortensen; Mariska Bauwelinck; Jochem O Klompmaker; Richard W Atkinson; Nicole A H Janssen; Bente Oftedal; Matteo Renzi; Francesco Forastiere; Maciek Strak; Bert Brunekreef; Gerard Hoek; Zorana J Andersen

doi:10.1016/j.envres.2023.115552

Long-term exposure to elemental components of fine particulate matter and all-natural and cause-specific mortality in a Danish nationwide administrative cohort study

Environ Res. 2023 May 1:224:115552. doi: 10.1016/j.envres.2023.115552. Epub 2023 Feb 22.

Authors

Rina So¹, Jie Chen², Massimo Stafoggia³, Kees de Hoogh⁴, Klea Katsouyanni⁵, Danielle Vienneau⁴, Evangelia Samoli⁶, Sophia Rodopoulou⁶, Steffen Loft⁷, Youn-Hee Lim⁷, Rudi G J Westendorp⁸, Heresh Amini⁹, Thomas Cole-Hunter⁷, Marie Bergmann⁷, Seyed Mahmood Taghavi Shahri⁷, Jiawei Zhang⁷, Matija Maric⁷, Laust H Mortensen¹⁰, Mariska Bauwelinck¹¹, Jochem O Klompmaker¹², Richard W Atkinson¹³, Nicole A H Janssen¹⁴, Bente Oftedal¹⁵, Matteo Renzi¹⁶, Francesco Forastiere¹⁷, Maciek Strak¹⁸, Bert Brunekreef², Gerard Hoek², Zorana J Andersen⁷

Affiliations

¹ Section of Environmental Health, Department of Public Health, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark. Electronic address: rina.so@sund.ku.dk.
² Institute for Risk Assessment Sciences, Utrecht University, Utrecht, the Netherlands.
³ Department of Epidemiology, Lazio Region Health Service/ASL Roma 1, Rome, Italy; Institute of Environmental Medicine, Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden.
⁴ Swiss Tropical and Public Health Institute, Allschwil, Switzerland; University of Basel, Basel, Switzerland.
⁵ Department of Hygiene, Epidemiology and Medical Statistics, Medical School, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Athens, Greece; Environmental Research Group, School of Public Health, Imperial College London, London, UK.
⁶ Department of Hygiene, Epidemiology and Medical Statistics, Medical School, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Athens, Greece.
⁷ Section of Environmental Health, Department of Public Health, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark.
⁸ Section of Epidemiology, Department of Public Health, Faculty of Health and Medical Sciences, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark; Center for Healthy Aging, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark.
⁹ Section of Environmental Health, Department of Public Health, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark; Department of Environmental Health, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, Boston, MA, United States; Department of Environmental Medicine and Public Health, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York, NY, United States.
¹⁰ Section of Epidemiology, Department of Public Health, Faculty of Health and Medical Sciences, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark; Denmark Statistics, Copenhagen, Denmark.
¹¹ Interface Demography - Department of Sociology, Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Brussels, Belgium.
¹² National Institute for Public Health and the Environment, Bilthoven, the Netherlands; Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, Boston, MA, USA.
¹³ Population Health Research Institute, St George's University of London, London, UK.
¹⁴ National Institute for Public Health and the Environment, Bilthoven, the Netherlands.
¹⁵ Department of air quality and noise, Norwegian Institute of Public Health, Oslo, Norway.
¹⁶ Department of Epidemiology, Lazio Region Health Service/ASL Roma 1, Rome, Italy.
¹⁷ Department of Epidemiology, Lazio Region Health Service/ASL Roma 1, Rome, Italy; Science Policy & Epidemiology Environmental Research Group King's College London, London, UK.
¹⁸ Institute for Risk Assessment Sciences, Utrecht University, Utrecht, the Netherlands; National Institute for Public Health and the Environment, Bilthoven, the Netherlands.

PMID: 36822536
DOI: 10.1016/j.envres.2023.115552

Abstract

Background: Fine particulate matter (PM_2.5) is a well-recognized risk factor for premature death. However, evidence on which PM_2.5 components are most relevant is unclear.

Methods: We evaluated the associations between mortality and long-term exposure to eight PM_2.5 elemental components [copper (Cu), iron (Fe), zinc (Zn), sulfur (S), nickel (Ni), vanadium (V), silicon (Si), and potassium (K)]. Studied outcomes included death from diabetes, chronic kidney disease (CKD), dementia, and psychiatric disorders as well as all-natural causes, cardiovascular disease (CVD), respiratory diseases (RD), and lung cancer. We followed all residents in Denmark (aged ≥30 years) from January 1, 2000 to December 31, 2017. We used European-wide land-use regression models at a 100 × 100 m scale to estimate the residential annual mean levels of exposure to PM_2.5 components. The models were developed with supervised linear regression (SLR) and random forest (RF). The associations were evaluated by Cox proportional hazard models adjusting for individual- and area-level socioeconomic factors and total PM_2.5 mass.

Results: Of 3,081,244 individuals, we observed 803,373 death from natural causes during follow-up. We found significant positive associations between all-natural mortality with Si and K from both exposure modeling approaches (hazard ratios; 95% confidence intervals per interquartile range increase): SLR-Si (1.04; 1.03-1.05), RF-Si (1.01; 1.00-1.02), SLR-K (1.03; 1.02-1.04), and RF-K (1.06; 1.05-1.07). Strong associations of K and Si were detected with most causes of mortality except CKD and K, and diabetes and Si (the strongest associations for psychiatric disorders mortality). In addition, Fe was relevant for mortality from RD, lung cancer, CKD, and psychiatric disorders; Zn with mortality from CKD, RD, and lung cancer, and; Ni and V with lung cancer mortality.

Conclusions: We present novel results of the relevance of different PM_2.5 components for different causes of death, with K and Si seeming to be most consistently associated with mortality in Denmark.

Keywords: Air pollution; Cox proportional regression model; Denmark; Long-term exposure; Mortality; PM(2.5) elemental components.

Publication types

Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't
Research Support, U.S. Gov't, Non-P.H.S.

MeSH terms

Air Pollutants* / analysis
Air Pollution* / statistics & numerical data
Cause of Death
Cohort Studies
Denmark / epidemiology
Environmental Exposure* / analysis
Environmental Exposure* / statistics & numerical data
Humans
Lung Neoplasms / mortality
Mortality*
Nickel
Particulate Matter / analysis
Renal Insufficiency, Chronic / mortality
Respiratory Tract Diseases / mortality
Zinc / analysis

Substances

Air Pollutants
Nickel
Particulate Matter
Zinc