Spatial and temporal estimation of air pollutants in New York City: exposure assignment for use in a birth outcomes study

Environmental Health

Research

David Savitz¹  Jane E Clougherty²  Sarah Johnson³  Kazuhiko Ito³  Michelle Yee³  Thomas Matte³  Grant Pezeshki³  Zev Ross⁴ 

[1] Department of Epidemiology, Brown University, Providence, RI, USA;Graduate School of Public Health, Department of Environmental and Occupational Health, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA, USA;New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, New York, NY, USA;ZevRoss Spatial Analysis, 120 N. Aurora St Suite 3A, 14850, Ithaca, NY, USA;

关键词: Air pollution;    Birth outcomes;    Particulate matter;    Nitrogen dioxide;    Land use regression;    NYCCAS;    Temporal adjustment;   

DOI  :  10.1186/1476-069X-12-51

 received in 2013-04-10, accepted in 2013-06-19,  发布年份 2013

来源: Springer

【 摘 要 】

BackgroundRecent epidemiological studies have examined the associations between air pollution and birth outcomes. Regulatory air quality monitors often used in these studies, however, were spatially sparse and unable to capture relevant within-city variation in exposure during pregnancy.MethodsThis study developed two-week average exposure estimates for fine particles (PM2.5) and nitrogen dioxide (NO2) during pregnancy for 274,996 New York City births in 2008–2010. The two-week average exposures were constructed by first developing land use regression (LUR) models of spatial variation in annual average PM2.5 and NO2 data from 150 locations in the New York City Community Air Survey and emissions source data near monitors. The annual average concentrations from the spatial models were adjusted to account for city-wide temporal trends using time series derived from regulatory monitors. Models were developed using Year 1 data and validated using Year 2 data. Two-week average exposures were then estimated for three buffers of maternal address and were averaged into the last six weeks, the trimesters, and the entire period of gestation. We characterized temporal variation of exposure estimates, correlation between PM2.5 and NO2, and correlation of exposures across trimesters.ResultsThe LUR models of average annual concentrations explained a substantial amount of the spatial variation (R2 = 0.79 for PM2.5 and 0.80 for NO2). In the validation, predictions of Year 2 two-week average concentrations showed strong agreement with measured concentrations (R2 = 0.83 for PM2.5 and 0.79 for NO2). PM2.5 exhibited greater temporal variation than NO2. The relative contribution of temporal vs. spatial variation in the estimated exposures varied by time window. The differing seasonal cycle of these pollutants (bi-annual for PM2.5 and annual for NO2) resulted in different patterns of correlations in the estimated exposures across trimesters. The three levels of spatial buffer did not make a substantive difference in estimated exposures.ConclusionsThe combination of spatially resolved monitoring data, LUR models and temporal adjustment using regulatory monitoring data yielded exposure estimates for PM2.5 and NO2 that performed well in validation tests. The interaction between seasonality of air pollution and exposure intervals during pregnancy needs to be considered in future studies.

【 授权许可】

CC BY   
© Ross et al.; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. 2013