Short-term Exposure to Ozone and Mortality in Subjects With and Without Previous Cardiovascular Disease.
Exposure to ground level ozone (O3) is a public health problem associated with a range of risks across population subgroups. Our aim was to investigate the role of previous cardiovascular diseases (CVDs) in mortality related to short-term O3 exposure.



Deaths between 1990 and 2010 in Stockholm County were matched with previous hospitalizations in Swedish registries. An urban background monitoring station provided hourly values of air quality data, from which we calculated 8-hour running averages and daily 8-hour maximum. We analyzed associations between daily O3 concentrations and mortality among persons with and without previous CVD hospitalization with a generalized additive model adjusted for time trend, influenza, and weather. We also performed two-pollutant models.



There were 302,283 nontrauma-related deaths, out of which 196,916 had previous CVD hospitalization. The mean concentration of daily maximum 8-hour O3 was 62.9 μg/m. An average 10 μg/m increase in the same and preceding day was associated with an increased mortality of 1.72% (95% confidence interval: 0.44%, 3.02%) in those with prior admission for acute myocardial infarction (AMI), which was more than three times higher than for those with no previous AMI (0.50, 95% confidence interval: 0.10%, 0.89%, P value for interaction 0.098). The association between O3 and mortality remained essentially unchanged in two-pollutant models with NO2, NOx, and PM10.



Our study indicates that short-term exposure to O3 is associated with increased mortality in those with a previous hospitalization for AMI.
From the aInstitute of Environmental Medicine, Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden; bDivision of Occupational and Environmental Medicine, Department of Public Health and Clinical Medicine, Umeå University, Umeå, Sweden; cDepartment of Occupational and Environmental Medicine, Stockholm County Council, Stockholm, Sweden; and dBeth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA.
Getahun
G
Bero Bedada
Auriba
A
Raza
Bertil
B
Forsberg
Tomas
T
Lind
Petter
P
Ljungman
Göran
G
Pershagen
Tom
T
Bellander
D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000397:Air Pollution; D002318:Cardiovascular Diseases / Q000453:epidemiology*; D016022:Case-Control Studies; D002423:Cause of Death; D004781:Environmental Exposure / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009026:Mortality; D009203:Myocardial Infarction / Q000453:epidemiology*; D009585:Nitrogen Dioxide; D010126:Ozone; D052638:Particulate Matter; D013548:Sweden / Q000453:epidemiology; D055815:Young Adult
D052638:Particulate Matter; D010126:Ozone; D009585:Nitrogen Dioxide