Air Pollution in Relation to COVID-19 Morbidity and Mortality: A Large Population-Based Cohort Study in Catalonia, Spain (COVAIR)

This Research Report, available for downloading below, presents a study that evaluated associations between exposure to outdoor air pollution and risk of hospital admissions, disease severity, and death related to coronavirus disease among 4.6 million adults in Catalonia, Spain, in 2020.

Key takeaways:

• The investigators reported higher risk of these COVID-19–related outcomes associated with higher short- and long-term exposures to nitrogen dioxide and to fine (PM_2.5) and coarse (PM₁₀) atmospheric particles.
• They reported that people who experienced long-term exposures to relatively high concentrations of outdoor air pollution and were characterized as having a lower socioeconomic status had a higher risk of COVID-19–related hospitalization than did others.
• Important strengths of the study include the high quality of the datasets, namely a population-based cohort that included many individual and area characteristics, and exposure models for several pollutants with high spatiotemporal resolution.
• This study provides evidence that both short- and long-term exposures to outdoor air pollution could increase the risk of severe COVID-19 outcomes.

This is the second of five different COVID-19 studies funded by HEI under Request for Applications 20-1B to be published. The other three studies are in review.