Ambient air pollution and incident dementia: exploration of relevant exposure windows

Melinda C Power¹, Katie M Lynch², Vixey Fang³, Qi Ying⁴, Eun Sug Park⁵, Richard L Smith⁶, James D Stewart⁷, Jeff D Yanosky⁸, Eric A Whitsel⁹, Xiaohui Xu¹⁰

Affiliations

¹ Department of Epidemiology, Milken Institute School of Public Health, George Washington University, 950 New Hampshire Ave NW, Washington, DC, 20052, USA. Electronic address: power@gwu.edu.
² Department of Epidemiology, Milken Institute School of Public Health, George Washington University, 950 New Hampshire Ave NW, Washington, DC, 20052, USA. Electronic address: kmlynch@gwu.edu.
³ Department of Epidemiology & Biostatistics, Texas A&M Health Science Center School of Public Health, 212 Adriance Lab Rd, College Station, TX, 77843, USA. Electronic address: vf91@tamu.edu.
⁴ Zachry Department of Civil & Environmental Engineering, Texas A&M University, 400 Bizzell Street, College Station, TX, 77843, USA. Electronic address: qi.ying@gmail.com.
⁵ Texas A&M Transportation Institute, Texas A&M University System, 3135 TAMU, College Station, TX, 77843, USA. Electronic address: e-park@tti.tamu.edu.
⁶ Department of Statistics and Operations Research, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 318 Hanes Hall, CB #3260, Chapel Hill, NC, 27599, USA; Department of Biostatistics, Gillings School of Global Public Health, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 135 Dauer Drive, 170 Rosenau Hall, CB #7400, Chapel Hill, NC, 27599, USA. Electronic address: rls@email.unc.edu.
⁷ Department of Epidemiology, Gillings School of Global Public Health, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 135 Dauer Drive, 2101 McGavran-Greenberg Hall, CB #7435, Chapel Hill, NC, 27599, USA. Electronic address: j.stewart@unc.edu.
⁸ Department of Public Health Sciences, College of Medicine, The Pennsylvania State University, 700 HMC Crescent Road, Hershey, PA, 17033, USA. Electronic address: jyanosky@pennstatehealth.psu.edu.
⁹ Department of Epidemiology, Gillings School of Global Public Health, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 135 Dauer Drive, 2101 McGavran-Greenberg Hall, CB #7435, Chapel Hill, NC, 27599, USA; Department of Medicine, School of Medicine, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 125 MacNider Hall, CB #7005, Chapel Hill, NC, 27599, USA. Electronic address: eric_whitsel@med.unc.edu.
¹⁰ Department of Epidemiology & Biostatistics, Texas A&M Health Science Center School of Public Health, 212 Adriance Lab Rd, College Station, TX, 77843, USA. Electronic address: xiaohui.xu@tamu.edu.

PMID: 40946897
PMCID: PMC12477651 (available on 2026-09-12)
DOI: 10.1016/j.envres.2025.122850

Ambient air pollution and incident dementia: exploration of relevant exposure windows

Melinda C Power et al. Environ Res. 2025.

. 2025 Sep 12;286(Pt 2):122850.

doi: 10.1016/j.envres.2025.122850. Online ahead of print.

Authors

Melinda C Power¹, Katie M Lynch², Vixey Fang³, Qi Ying⁴, Eun Sug Park⁵, Richard L Smith⁶, James D Stewart⁷, Jeff D Yanosky⁸, Eric A Whitsel⁹, Xiaohui Xu¹⁰

Affiliations

¹ Department of Epidemiology, Milken Institute School of Public Health, George Washington University, 950 New Hampshire Ave NW, Washington, DC, 20052, USA. Electronic address: power@gwu.edu.
² Department of Epidemiology, Milken Institute School of Public Health, George Washington University, 950 New Hampshire Ave NW, Washington, DC, 20052, USA. Electronic address: kmlynch@gwu.edu.
³ Department of Epidemiology & Biostatistics, Texas A&M Health Science Center School of Public Health, 212 Adriance Lab Rd, College Station, TX, 77843, USA. Electronic address: vf91@tamu.edu.
⁴ Zachry Department of Civil & Environmental Engineering, Texas A&M University, 400 Bizzell Street, College Station, TX, 77843, USA. Electronic address: qi.ying@gmail.com.
⁵ Texas A&M Transportation Institute, Texas A&M University System, 3135 TAMU, College Station, TX, 77843, USA. Electronic address: e-park@tti.tamu.edu.
⁶ Department of Statistics and Operations Research, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 318 Hanes Hall, CB #3260, Chapel Hill, NC, 27599, USA; Department of Biostatistics, Gillings School of Global Public Health, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 135 Dauer Drive, 170 Rosenau Hall, CB #7400, Chapel Hill, NC, 27599, USA. Electronic address: rls@email.unc.edu.
⁷ Department of Epidemiology, Gillings School of Global Public Health, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 135 Dauer Drive, 2101 McGavran-Greenberg Hall, CB #7435, Chapel Hill, NC, 27599, USA. Electronic address: j.stewart@unc.edu.
⁸ Department of Public Health Sciences, College of Medicine, The Pennsylvania State University, 700 HMC Crescent Road, Hershey, PA, 17033, USA. Electronic address: jyanosky@pennstatehealth.psu.edu.
⁹ Department of Epidemiology, Gillings School of Global Public Health, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 135 Dauer Drive, 2101 McGavran-Greenberg Hall, CB #7435, Chapel Hill, NC, 27599, USA; Department of Medicine, School of Medicine, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 125 MacNider Hall, CB #7005, Chapel Hill, NC, 27599, USA. Electronic address: eric_whitsel@med.unc.edu.
¹⁰ Department of Epidemiology & Biostatistics, Texas A&M Health Science Center School of Public Health, 212 Adriance Lab Rd, College Station, TX, 77843, USA. Electronic address: xiaohui.xu@tamu.edu.

PMID: 40946897
PMCID: PMC12477651 (available on 2026-09-12)
DOI: 10.1016/j.envres.2025.122850

Abstract

Background: As dementia has a decades-long preclinical phase, earlier air pollution exposures may be more etiologically relevant to dementia risk than more recent exposures.

Methods: We estimated exposures at Atherosclerosis Risk in Communities (ARIC) study participant addresses to criteria air pollutants, PM components, and trace metals in several exposure windows (1990-1994, 1995-1999, 2000-2004, 2005-2009, and 1990-2009) using a chemical transport model with observation data fusing at two resolutions, 4 km (CTM-4k) and finest available resolution (CTM-FR), and to PM_2.5, ozone, and NO₂ using universal kriging with land-use regression and partial least squares regression (UK-LUR-PLSR). We estimated the association between each exposure/exposure window and incident dementia from ARIC Visit 5 (2011-2013) to Visit 7 (2018-2019).

Results: During follow-up (mean: 6.1 years) of 5,621 participants (mean baseline age: 76 years), 828 (14.7 %) developed dementia. Analyses did not support an association between most air pollutant exposures in any exposure window and incident dementia. However, we observed stronger associations in later time periods for PM_2.5, with significant associations in the latest time period with one exposure estimation approach: (HR (95 % CI) per 1 ug/m³ higher 2005-2009 p.m._2.5 exposure for CTM-FR: 1.11 (0.99, 1.25); CTM-4k: 1.07 (0.89, 1.22), UK-LUR-PLSR: 1.13 (1.03, 1.24). We saw similar patterns for NO₂, elemental carbon, Ni, and V.

Discussion: We found little evidence supporting the hypothesized greater etiologic relevance of earlier exposures on incident dementia. Spatial confounding or acceleration of pathologic processes may explain the stronger associations observed with later exposure windows.

Keywords: Air pollution; Cognition; Dementia; Exposure windows.

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Conflict of interest statement

Declaration of competing interest The authors declare the following financial interests/personal relationships which may be considered as potential competing interests: Melinda Power reports financial support was provided by National Institutes of Health. Melinda Power reports a relationship with National Institutes of Health that includes: funding grants. Melinda Power reports a relationship with Prince George's County Health Department that includes: funding grants. Melinda Power reports a relationship with US Department of Defense that includes: funding grants. Eun Sug Park reports a relationship with National Institutes of Health that includes: funding grants. Eric Whitsel reports a relationship with National Institutes of Health that includes: funding grants. Eric Whitsel reports a relationship with Federal Aviation Administration that includes: funding grants. If there are other authors, they declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

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Ambient air pollution and incident dementia: exploration of relevant exposure windows

Affiliations

Ambient air pollution and incident dementia: exploration of relevant exposure windows

Authors

Affiliations

Abstract

Conflict of interest statement

References

Grants and funding

LinkOut - more resources

Full Text Sources

Research Materials