Assessing Adverse Health Effects of Long-Term Exposure to Low Levels of Ambient Air Pollution: Implementation of Causal Inference Methods

Research Report 211, available for downloading below, presents a major HEI study examining the risk of mortality associated with exposure to low ambient air pollution concentrations in a cohort of 68.5 million older Americans. 

Dr. Francesca Dominici of the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and colleagues developed annual exposure models at a spatial resolution of 1 km × 1 km for the years 2000 to 2016 covering the contiguous United States for fine particulate matter (PM_2.5), nitrogen dioxide (NO₂), and ozone (O₃). 

The study is one of three funded as part of RFA 14-3, Assessing Health Effects of Long-Term Exposure to Low Levels of Ambient Air Pollution, issued in 2014. The studies, based in the United States, Canada, and Europe, incorporated state-of-the-art exposure methods and large cohorts in high-income countries. 

This U.S. report follows the release of the European study in September 2021. The final Canadian report is expected later in 2022.