Ozone Exposure and Mortality

BACKGROUND: Results from time-series epidemiologic studies evaluating the relationship between ambient ozone concentrations and premature mortality vary in their conclusions about the magnitude of this relationship, if any, making it difficult to estimate public health benefits of air pollution control measures. We conducted an empiric Bayes metaregression to estimate the ozone effect on mortality, and to assess whether this effect varies as a function of hypothesized confounders or effect modifiers. METHODS: We gathered 71 time-series studies relating ozone to all-cause mortality, and we selected 48 estimates from 28 studies for the metaregression. Metaregression covariates included the relationship between ozone concentrations and concentrations of other air pollutants, proxies for personal exposure-ambient concentration relationships, and the statistical methods used in the studies. For our metaregression, we applied a hierarchical linear model with known level-1 variances. RESULTS: We estimated a grand mean of a 0.21% increase (95% confidence interval = 0.16-0.26%) in mortality per 10-microg/m increase of 1-hour maximum ozone (0.41% increase per 10 ppb) without controlling for other air pollutants. In the metaregression, air-conditioning prevalence and lag time were the strongest predictors of between-study variability. Air pollution covariates yielded inconsistent findings in regression models, although correlation analyses indicated a potential influence of summertime PM2.5. CONCLUSIONS: These findings, coupled with a greater relative risk of ozone in the summer versus the winter, demonstrate that geographic and seasonal heterogeneity in ozone relative risk should be anticipated, but that the observed relationship between ozone and mortality should be considered for future regulatory impact analyses.