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Spatial variation in the effects of air pollution on cardiovascular mortality in Beijing, China

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Abstract

Due to lack of data from multiple air quality monitoring stations, studies about spatial association between concentrations of ambient pollutants and mortality in China are rare. To investigate the spatial variation of association between concentrations of particulate matter less than 10 μm in aerodynamic diameter (PM10) and nitrogen dioxide (NO2) and cardiovascular mortality in Beijing, China, we collected data including daily deaths, concentrations of PM10 and NO2, and meteorological factors from January 1, 2009, to December 31, 2010, in all 16 districts of Beijing. Generalized additive model (GAM) and generalized additive mixed model (GAMM) were used to examine the citywide and district-specific effects of PM10 and NO2 on cardiovascular mortality. The citywide effect derived from GAMM was lower than that derived from GAM and the strongest effects were identified for 2-day moving average lag 0–1. For every 10 μg/m3 increases in concentrations of PM10 and NO2, the corresponding daily cardiovascular mortality increases in 0.31% (95%CI 0.15%, 0.46%) and 1.63% (95%CI 1.11%, 2.13%), respectively. The death risk associated with air pollutants varied across different geographic districts in Beijing. We found spatially varied adverse effects of air pollution on cardiovascular deaths in Beijing. But there was insufficient evidence to show the significant spatial heterogeneity in mortality effects of PM10 and NO2 in this study.

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Acknowledgements

We thank all the following sectors for their assistances: the China National Environmental Monitoring Centre for providing air pollution data, the Beijing Municipal Meteorological Bureau for providing meteorology data, the China Center for Disease Control and Prevention for providing mortality data, and the Beijing Municipal Traffic Management Bureau for providing road information data.

Funding

This study is supported by the Gong-Yi Program of the Chinese Ministry of Environmental Protection (Grant No. 200909016), Peking Union Medical College Graduate Student Innovation Fund in 2013, and the CAMS Innovation Fund for Medical Sciences (2017-I2M-1-009), China Medical Board (Grant No. 15-230), National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 41771435), and China Scholarship Council (Grant No. 201704910297).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, Institute of Basic Medical Sciences Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences, School of Basic Medicine, Peking Union Medical College, Beijing, 100005, China

    Wenjing Li, Lu Pei, Ang Li, Kai Luo & Qun Xu

  2. Center of Environmental and Health Sciences, Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences, Peking Union Medical College, Beijing, 100005, China

    Wenjing Li, Lu Pei, Ang Li, Kai Luo & Qun Xu

  3. Clinical Epidemiology and Biostatistics, School of Medical Sciences, Örebro University, 701 85, Örebro, Sweden

    Yang Cao

  4. Unit of Biostatistics, Institute of Environmental Medicine, Karolinska Institutet, 17 177, Stockholm, Sweden

    Yang Cao

  5. College of Resources and Environment, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100049, China

    Runkui Li

  6. State Key Laboratory of Resources and Environmental Information System, Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources Research, Chinese Academy of Science, Beijing, 100101, China

    Runkui Li

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  1. Wenjing Li
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  2. Lu Pei
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  3. Ang Li
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  4. Kai Luo
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  5. Yang Cao
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  6. Runkui Li
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  7. Qun Xu
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Correspondence to Qun Xu.

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The study was approved by the Institutional Review Board of institute of Basic Medical Sciences, Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences.

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The authors declare they have no competing interests.

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Responsible editor: Philippe Garrigues

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Li, W., Pei, L., Li, A. et al. Spatial variation in the effects of air pollution on cardiovascular mortality in Beijing, China. Environ Sci Pollut Res 26, 2501–2511 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-018-3725-0

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-018-3725-0

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