Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
Meta-Analysis
. 2015 Jun;123(6):613-21.
doi: 10.1289/ehp.1408206. Epub 2015 Feb 24.

Ambient air pollution and adult asthma incidence in six European cohorts (ESCAPE)

Bénédicte Jacquemin  1 , Valérie Siroux, Margaux Sanchez, Anne-Elie Carsin, Tamara Schikowski, Martin Adam, Valeria Bellisario, Anna Buschka, Roberto Bono, Bert Brunekreef, Yutong Cai, Marta Cirach, Françoise Clavel-Chapelon, Christophe Declercq, Roberto de Marco, Audrey de Nazelle, Regina E Ducret-Stich, Virginia Valeria Ferretti, Margaret W Gerbase, Rebecca Hardy, Joachim Heinrich, Christer Janson, Deborah Jarvis, Zaina Al Kanaani, Dirk Keidel, Diana Kuh, Nicole Le Moual, Mark J Nieuwenhuijsen, Alessandro Marcon, Lars Modig, Isabelle Pin, Thierry Rochat, Christian Schindler, Dorothea Sugiri, Morgane Stempfelet, Sofia Temam, Ming-Yi Tsai, Raphaëlle Varraso, Danielle Vienneau, Andrea Vierkötter, Anna L Hansell, Ursula Krämer, Nicole M Probst-Hensch, Jordi Sunyer, Nino Künzli, Francine Kauffmann
Affiliations
Meta-Analysis

Ambient air pollution and adult asthma incidence in six European cohorts (ESCAPE)

Bénédicte Jacquemin et al. Environ Health Perspect. 2015 Jun.

Abstract

Background: Short-term exposure to air pollution has adverse effects among patients with asthma, but whether long-term exposure to air pollution is a cause of adult-onset asthma is unclear.

Objective: We aimed to investigate the association between air pollution and adult onset asthma.

Methods: Asthma incidence was prospectively assessed in six European cohorts. Exposures studied were annual average concentrations at home addresses for nitrogen oxides assessed for 23,704 participants (including 1,257 incident cases) and particulate matter (PM) assessed for 17,909 participants through ESCAPE land-use regression models and traffic exposure indicators. Meta-analyses of cohort-specific logistic regression on asthma incidence were performed. Models were adjusted for age, sex, overweight, education, and smoking and included city/area within each cohort as a random effect.

Results: In this longitudinal analysis, asthma incidence was positively, but not significantly, associated with all exposure metrics, except for PMcoarse. Positive associations of borderline significance were observed for nitrogen dioxide [adjusted odds ratio (OR) = 1.10; 95% CI: 0.99, 1.21 per 10 μg/m3; p = 0.10] and nitrogen oxides (adjusted OR = 1.04; 95% CI: 0.99, 1.08 per 20 μg/m3; p = 0.08). Nonsignificant positive associations were estimated for PM10 (adjusted OR = 1.04; 95% CI: 0.88, 1.23 per 10 μg/m3), PM2.5 (adjusted OR = 1.04; 95% CI: 0.88, 1.23 per 5 μg/m3), PM2.5absorbance (adjusted OR = 1.06; 95% CI: 0.95, 1.19 per 10-5/m), traffic load (adjusted OR = 1.10; 95% CI: 0.93, 1.30 per 4 million vehicles × meters/day on major roads in a 100-m buffer), and traffic intensity (adjusted OR = 1.10; 95% CI: 0.93, 1.30 per 5,000 vehicles/day on the nearest road). A nonsignificant negative association was estimated for PMcoarse (adjusted OR = 0.98; 95% CI: 0.87, 1.14 per 5 μg/m3).

Conclusions: Results suggest a deleterious effect of ambient air pollution on asthma incidence in adults. Further research with improved personal-level exposure assessment (vs. residential exposure assessment only) and phenotypic characterization is needed.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare they have no actual or potential competing financial interests.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
NO2 and PM10 concentrations (μg/m3) by study. Boxes extend from the 25th to the 75th percentile, bars inside the boxes represent the median, and whiskers indicate the minimum and maximum values.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Associations of NO2 and NO2 back-extrapolated (per 10 μg/m3) on asthma incidence. Meta-analysis from the study-specific adjusted random-effects logistic regression models. The logistic regression models were adjusted for age, sex, smoking, overweight, and education level (model 3) with random effects per city/area for each study except for SALIA, where there is only one area, and EGEA, where family structure was taken into account. I-V: inverse variance weighted (fixed effect) pooled estimate of all studies. I2: variation in estimate effect attributable to heterogeneity. D+L: DerSimonian and Laird (random effect) pooled estimate of all studies. Study-specific odds ratios are shown as solid black diamonds with horizontal lines representing 95% CIs. The size of the blue squares reflects the statistical weight of the study in the meta-analyses. The meta-analytic odds ratios are shown as open black diamonds, the middle of the diamond corresponds to the odds ratio value, and the width of the diamond represents the 95% CI.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. Ackermann-Liebrich U, Kuna-Dibbert B, Probst-Hensch NM, Schindler C, Felber Dietrich D, Stutz EZ, et al. Follow-up of the Swiss Cohort Study on Air Pollution and Lung Diseases in Adults (SAPALDIA 2) 1991–2003: methods and characterization of participants. Soz Praventivmed. 2005;50:245–263. - PubMed
    1. Anderson HR, Favarato G, Atkinson RW. Long-term exposure to air pollution and the incidence of asthma: meta-analysis of cohort studies. Air Qual Atmos Health. 2013;6:47–56.
    1. Antó JM, Sunyer J, Basagaña X, Garcia-Esteban R, Cerveri I, de Marco R, et al. Risk factors of new-onset asthma in adults: a population-based international cohort study. Allergy. 2010;65:1021–1030. - PubMed
    1. Basagaña X, Aguilera I, Rivera M, Agis D, Foraster M, Marrugat J, et al. Measurement error in epidemiologic studies of air pollution based on land-use regression models. Am J Epidemiol. 2013;178:1342–1346. - PubMed
    1. Beelen R, Hoek G, Vienneau D, Eeftens M, Dimakopoulou K, Pedeli X, et al. Development of NO2 and NOx land use regression models for estimating air pollution exposure in 36 study areas in Europe—the ESCAPE project. Atmos Environ. 2013;72:10–23.

Publication types