title: How robust are the estimated effects of air pollution on health? Accounting for model uncertainty using Bayesian model averaging.
abstract: The long-term impact of air pollution on human health can be estimated from small-area ecological studies in which the health outcome is regressed against air pollution concentrations and other covariates, such as socio-economic deprivation. Socio-economic deprivation is multi-factorial and difficult to measure, and includes aspects of income, education, and housing as well as others. However, these variables are potentially highly correlated, meaning one can either create an overall deprivation index, or use the individual characteristics, which can result in a variety of pollution-health effects. Other aspects of model choice may affect the pollution-health estimate, such as the estimation of pollution, and spatial autocorrelation model. Therefore, we propose a Bayesian model averaging approach to combine the results from multiple statistical models to produce a more robust representation of the overall pollution-health effect. We investigate the relationship between nitrogen dioxide concentrations and cardio-respiratory mortality in West Central Scotland between 2006 and 2012.
authors: MRC|CSO Social and Public Health Science Unit, University of Glasgow, 200 Renfield Street, Glasgow, G2 3QB, UK. Electronic address: f.pannullo.1@research.gla.ac.uk.
authors: Francesca
authors: F
authors: Pannullo
authors: School of Mathematics and Statistics, University of Glasgow, 15 University Gardens, Glasgow, G12 8QW, UK.
authors: Duncan
authors: D
authors: Lee
authors: Public Health, University of Glasgow, 1 Lilybank Gardens, Glasgow, G12 8RZ, UK.
authors: Eugene
authors: E
authors: Waclawski
authors: MRC|CSO Social and Public Health Science Unit, University of Glasgow, 200 Renfield Street, Glasgow, G2 3QB, UK.
authors: Alastair H
authors: AH
authors: Leyland
mesh_terms: D000393:Air Pollutants / Q000032:analysis*; D000397:Air Pollution / Q000009:adverse effects*; D001499:Bayes Theorem; D002318:Cardiovascular Diseases / Q000453:epidemiology* / Q000209:etiology / Q000517:prevention & control; D006304:Health Status; D006801:Humans; D008962:Models, Theoretical; D009585:Nitrogen Dioxide / Q000032:analysis*; D012606:Scotland / Q000453:epidemiology; D062211:Spatio-Temporal Analysis; D013223:Statistics as Topic
chemical_list: D000393:Air Pollutants; D009585:Nitrogen Dioxide
keywords: Bayesian model averaging; Conditional autoregressive models; Nitrogen dioxide; Spatial autocorrelation