Hospital Admissions and Fine Particulate Air Pollution—Reply
- Francesca Dominici, PhD
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fdominic@jhsph.edu
- Roger D. Peng, PhD
-
Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health
Baltimore, Md
- Michelle L. Bell, PhD
-
Yale University School of Forestry and Environmental Studies
New Haven, Conn
- Luu Pham, MS;
- Aidan McDermott, PhD;
- Scott L. Zeger, PhD;
- Jonathan M. Samet, MD
-
Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health
Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text.
- KEYWORDS:
- AIR POLLUTION
- CARDIOVASCULAR DISEASES
- DATA INTERPRETATION, STATISTICAL
- ENVIRONMENTAL EXPOSURE
- HOSPITALIZATION
- LUNG DISEASES
- RESPIRATORY TRACT DISEASES
In Reply: Dr Thurston asks whether our approach could be used to investigate if achieving the newly proposed 24-hour average National Ambient Air Quality Standard for PM2.5 of 35 μg/m3 would eliminate the public health risk associated with short-term exposure to PM2.5. To address this question, we have reestimated the national average relative rates by using only data for days with PM2.5 levels of less than 35 μg/m3 and used the identical methods as reported in the article. The Table shows results using the entire data set from Table 1 of our article and from this restricted analysis. Despite the diminished statistical power, we still find statistically significant associations between short-term exposure to PM2.5 and hospital admissions for cerebrovascular disease, heart failure, and respiratory tract infections, as well as an association with heart rhythm (which was not significant in the original analysis). Although …
