Secondary organic aerosol association with cardiorespiratory disease mortality in the United States.
Where this comes from
- Record sourced from PubMed, PMID 34916495.
- Also identified by DOI 10.1038/s41467-021-27484-1 and PMC identifier 8677800.
- Licence recorded as CC BY.
- The licence permits redistribution, so the abstract is shown in full and the full text is available from the publisher.
Abstract
Fine particle pollution, PM<sub>2.5</sub>, is associated with increased risk of death from cardiorespiratory diseases. A multidecadal shift in the United States (U.S.) PM<sub>2.5</sub> composition towards organic aerosol as well as advances in predictive algorithms for secondary organic aerosol (SOA) allows for novel examinations of the role of PM<sub>2.5</sub> components on mortality. Here we show SOA is strongly associated with county-level cardiorespiratory death rates in the U.S. independent of the total PM<sub>2.5</sub> mass association with the largest associations located in the southeastern U.S. Compared to PM<sub>2.5</sub>, county-level variability in SOA across the U.S. is associated with 3.5× greater per capita county-level cardiorespiratory mortality. On a per mass basis, SOA is associated with a 6.5× higher rate of mortality than PM<sub>2.5</sub>, and biogenic and anthropogenic carbon sources both play a role in the overall SOA association with mortality. Our results suggest reducing the health impacts of PM<sub>2.5</sub> requires consideration of SOA.
Medical subject headings
- Aerosols
- Air Pollutants
- Heart Diseases
- Respiratory Tract Diseases