Long-range fine particulate matter from the 2002 Quebec forest fires and daily mortality in Greater Boston and New York City

Abstract

During July 2002, forest fires in Quebec, Canada, blanketed the US East Coast with a plume of wood smoke. This “natural experiment” exposed large populations in northeastern US cities to significantly elevated concentrations of fine particulate matter (PM2.5), providing a unique opportunity to test the association between daily mortality and ambient PM2.5 levels that are uncorrelated with societal activity rhythms. We obtained PM2.5 measurement data and mortality data for a 4-week period in July 2002 for the Greater Boston metropolitan area (which has a population of over 1.7 million people) and New York City (which has a population of over 8 million people). Daily average PM2.5 concentrations were markedly increased for 3 days over this period, reaching as high as 63 μg/m3 for Greater Boston and 86 μg/m3 for New York City from background ambient levels of 4–48 μg/m3 in the non-smoke days. We examined temporal patterns of natural-cause deaths and 24-h ambient PM2.5 concentrations in July 2002 and did not observe any discernible increase in daily mortality subsequent to the dramatic elevation in ambient PM2.5 levels. Comparison to mortality rates over the same time periods in 2001 and 2003 showed no evidence of impact. Results from Poisson regression analyses suggest that 24-h ambient PM2.5 concentrations were not associated with daily mortality. In conclusion, substantial short-term elevation in PM2.5 concentrations from forest fire smoke were not followed by increased daily mortality in Greater Boston or New York City.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (doi:10.1007/s11869-015-0332-9) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

Fine Suspended Particulates in Ambient Air and Their Health Effects in Megalopolises

“…Автор этого исследования также констатирует, что с ростом температуры воздуха наблюдается повышение поступления РМ в атмосферный воздух (Чижова, 2014). Содержание РМ в атмосферном воздухе мегаполисов возрастает во время пожаров, и это приводило к повышенной смертности населения в Москве в 2010 г., Нью-Йорке и Бостоне, поэтому значение имеют соответствующие меры профилактики (Schaposnikov et al, 2014;Zu et al, 2016). Определенный опыт по минимизации рисков от воздействия РМ и аномальной жары имеется и в Москве, где разработана шкала опасности загрязнения атмосферного воздуха РМ10 и высоких температур, вошедшая в План действий во время жары и высокого уровня загрязнения атмосферного воздуха, утвержденный мэром Москвы (Ревич и др., 2015в), необходимы такие аналогичные планы и в других крупных городах страны.…”

Atmospheric pollution and cognitive decaying in the elderly: A review

“…Different authors have questioned the linear increase of the disease risk with an increasing dose of pollutants, conversely recognizing an inverted U-shaped (hormetic) curve with a low/mild dose exposure. This results in a positive/uneventful effect when low-mild dose of (air) pollutants are contemplated [47][48][49][50] .…”

Particulate Matter Mortality Rates and Their Modification by Spatial Synoptic Classification

“…Associations between particulate matter (PM) and mortality have been reported from several perspectives, such as cause of death [1,2,3,4,5,6], PM fraction size [1,7,8,9,10,11], study population variables including age [12,13,14], sex [15], or race and ethnicity [16], and varied study settings [4,7,9,17,18,19,20,21,22,23,24] including global estimates [25].…”