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. 2025 Sep 2;25(1):3014.
doi: 10.1186/s12889-025-24275-x.

Identifying critical windows of air pollution exposure and semen quality: A cross-sectional study in Chinese fertile men

Jialin Feng #  1   2   3 , Yan Yuan #  1   2 , Yuting Cheng  1   2 , Peihao Wu  1   2 , Yixuan Yan  1   2 , Qi Liu  1   2 , Feng Wu  1   2 , Jing Wei  4 , Hongshan Ge  5 , Qiuqin Tang  6 , Wei Wu  7   8   9   10
Affiliations

Identifying critical windows of air pollution exposure and semen quality: A cross-sectional study in Chinese fertile men

Jialin Feng et al. BMC Public Health. .

Abstract

Background: Although human studies on the hazard that air pollution represents to male reproductive health, there are wide variations in exposure concentration, key components, semen quality indicators and the identification of susceptible exposure windows. The study aimed to further explore the relationship between air pollution and semen quality and the more accurate sensitive exposure windows.

Methods: We investigated a cross-sectional study consisting of 1554 fertile men from Nanjing, China and evaluated their exposure to PM10, PM2.5, CO, SO2, NO2 and O3 in the air. Multiple linear regression was utilized to estimate the correlation between weekly air pollution exposure and semen quality, as well as weighted quantile sum (WQS) regression and bayesian kernel machine regression (BKMR) for the effect of mixtures. We also established the distributed lag non-linear model to delineate exposure-lag-response relationship.

Results: Our analysis linked PM2.5 exposure at week 10 to reduced total motility (β = - 2.06, 95% CI: (- 3.71, - 0.41)) and progressive motility (β = - 1.79, 95% CI: (- 3.23, - 0.34)). WQS regression showed co-exposure inversely correlated with total motility (β = - 1.49, 95% CI: (- 2.63, - 0.35)) and progressive motility (β = - 1.27, 95% CI: (- 2.30, - 0.25)) at week 11, where PM2.5 contributed the most. A great lagged impact resulting from PM2.5 on sperm motility peaked 10 to 11 weeks after exposure. We also found that PM2.5 exposure at week 10 increased the risk of having below-referenced progressive motility (< 32%) by the method of BKMR. Based on these results, the early stage of spermatogenesis (from week 10 to week 11 before semen collection), was recognized as the susceptible exposure window. Furthermore, BKMR analysis suggested co-exposure to major components of the primary contributor, PM2.5, during this period were negatively correlated with sperm motility, including NO3-, NH4+, SO42-, black carbon and organic matter, and SO42- was the most weighted composition.

Conclusions: In both the single pollutant models and the multi-pollutants models, PM2.5 and its chemical components inversely correlated with sperm motility in a relatively early window (from week 10 to week 11 before semen collection) which was identified to be more sensitive to air pollution.

Keywords: Air pollution; Critical window; Major chemical composition of PM2.5; Semen quality; Sperm motility.

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Conflict of interest statement

Declarations. Ethics approval and consent to participate: The study was approved by the Institutional Review Board of Nanjing Medical University, China (NJMUIRB (2010) 0028). All study participants submitted written informed consent. And all research activities involving human subjects in this study were conducted in full accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki. Consent for publication: Not applicable. Competing interests: The authors declare no competing interests.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
The associations between air pollution exposure and semen quality during different exposure windows
Fig. 2
Fig. 2
The associations between air pollution co-exposure and semen parameters at week 11
Fig. 3
Fig. 3
The weights for the associations between air pollution co-exposure and sperm motility. (A) The associations between air pollution co-exposure and total motility. (B) The associations between air pollution co-exposure and progressive motility
Fig. 4
Fig. 4
The exposure-lag-response relationship between air pollutant exposure and sperm motility. (A) The exposure-lag-response relationship between PM2.5 and progressive motility, and 3-D diagram is shown in (C). (B) The exposure-lag-response relationship between PM2.5 and total motility, and 3-D diagram is shown in (D)
Fig. 5
Fig. 5
The associations between air pollution co-exposure and sperm motility by BKMR models. (A1-A4) The overall effects of air pollutants co-exposure on sperm motility by comparison between compounds fixed at different quantiles and fixed at the median. (B1-B4) The association between an interquartile range increase in single air pollutant exposure and sperm motility when the other air pollutants are fixed at 25th, 50th or 75th percentiles. (C1-C4) The univariate exposure-response relationship between each air pollutant and sperm motility when the other air pollutants are fixed at the median
Fig. 6
Fig. 6
The associations between major chemical components of PM2.5 and sperm motility by BKMR models. (A1-A4) The overall association between chemical components of PM2.5 co-exposure on sperm motility by comparison between compounds fixed at different quantiles and fixed at the median. (B1-B4) The association between an interquartile range increase in single component exposure and sperm motility when the other components are fixed at 25th, 50th or 75th percentiles. (C1-C4) The univariate exposure-response relationship between each chemical component and sperm motility when the other components are fixed at the median
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