Chronic Exposure to Particulate Pollution Shortens Lives by One to Three Years
Does air pollution have a significant effect on life shortening?
There have been two recent attempts to quantify the extent of life shortening predicted by the long-term epidemiological studies.
Dutch scientist Dr. Burt Brunekreef made such an estimate in a paper prepared for the World Health Organization’s consideration of revisions to the Air Quality Guidelines for Europe. Using risk ratios reported in the Harvard Six Cities Study and the Study of the American Cancer Society cohort, Brunekreef conducted a life table analysis to estimate the effect of particulate air pollution on the survival rate of 25 year-old Dutch men. An extrapolation based on U.S. life tables yields an estimated diminished life expectancy of 1.31 years due to ambient pollution.
Dr. C. Arden Pope III, of Brigham Young University, analyzed reductions in life expectancy in the U.S. population due to chronic exposure to particulate matter. He applied relative risks for premature death derived from the prospective cohort studies, and estimated loss of life expectancy ranging from one to three years, depending upon assumptions about the age at which susceptibility to the effects of air pollution begins.
Brunekreef, Burt. Air Pollution and Life Expectancy: Is There a Relation? Occup Environ Med 1997 Nov; 54(11):781-4.
Pope, C.A. III, Epidemiology of Fine Particulate Air Pollution and Human Health: Biological Mechanisms and Who’s at Risk? Environ Health Persect 108 (suppl 4):713-723 (2000). Environmental Health Perspectives [ehpnet1.niehs.nih.gov/docs/allpubs.html] publishes an abstract online.
