Long-term exposure to air pollution and COVID-19 incidence: A multi-country study
File(s)
Accepted version
Author(s)
Huang, G
Blangiardo, M
Brown, PE
Pirani, M
Type
Journal Article
Abstract
The study of the impacts of air pollution on COVID-19 has gained increasing attention. However, most of the existing studies are based on a single country, with a high degree of variation in the results reported in different papers. We attempt to inform the debate about the long-term effects of air pollution on COVID-19 by conducting a multi-country analysis using a spatial ecological design, including Canada, Italy, England and the United States. The model allows the residual spatial autocorrelation after accounting for covariates. It is concluded that the effects of PM2.5 and NO2 are inconsistent across countries. Specifically, NO2 was not found to be an important factor affecting COVID-19 infection, while a large effect for PM2.5 in the US is not found in the other three countries. The Population Attributable Fraction for COVID-19 incidence ranges from 3.4% in Canada to 45.9% in Italy, although with considerable uncertainty in these estimates.
Date Issued
2021-11-01
Date Acceptance
2021-07-21
Citation
Spatial and Spatio-temporal Epidemiology, 2021, 39, pp.1-11
ISSN
1877-5845
Publisher
Elsevier
Start Page
1
End Page
11
Journal / Book Title
Spatial and Spatio-temporal Epidemiology
Volume
39
Copyright Statement
© 2021 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. This manuscript is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International Licence http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/
Identifier
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1877584521000423?via%3Dihub
Subjects
0707 Veterinary Sciences
1117 Public Health and Health Services
Publication Status
Published
Date Publish Online
2021-08-11