Mercedes Medina-Ramón,1 Robert Goldberg,2,3 Steven Melly,1 Murray A. Mittleman,4,5 and Joel Schwartz1,4
1Department of Environmental Health, Harvard School of Public Health, Boston, Massachusetts, USA; 2Department of Community Health, Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island, USA; 3Department of Medicine, University of Massachusetts Medical School, Worcester, Massachusetts, USA; 4Department of Epidemiology, Harvard School of Public Health, Boston, Massachusetts, USA; 5Cardiovascular Epidemiology Research Unit, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Boston, Massachusetts, USA
Abstract
Background: Although patients with heart failure (HF) have been identified as particularly susceptible to the acute effects of air pollution, the effects of long-term exposure to air pollution on patients with this increasingly prevalent disease are largely unknown.
Objective: This study was designed to examine the mortality risk associated with residential exposure to traffic-related air pollution among HF patients.
Methods: A total of 1,389 patients hospitalized with acute HF in greater Worcester, Massachusetts, during 2000 were followed for survival through December 2005. We used daily traffic within 100 and 300 m of residence as well as the distance from residence to major roadways and to bus routes as proxies for residential exposure to traffic-related air pollution. We assessed mortality risks for each exposure variable using Cox proportional hazards models adjusted for prognostic factors.
Results: After the 5-year follow-up, only 334 (24%) subjects were still alive. An interquartile range increase in daily traffic within 100 m of home was associated with a mortality hazard ratio (HR) of 1.15 [95% confidence interval (CI) , 1.05–1.25], whereas for traffic within 300 m this association was 1.09 (95% CI, 1.01–1.19) . The mortality risk decreased with increasing distance to bus routes (HR = 0.88 ; 95% CI, 0.81–0.96) and was larger for those living within 100 m of a major roadway or 50 m of a bus route (HR = 1.30 ; 95% CI, 1.13–1.49) . Adjustment for area-based income and educational level slightly attenuated these associations.
Conclusions: Residential exposure to traffic-related air pollution increases the mortality risk after hospitalization with acute HF. Reducing exposure to traffic-related emissions may improve the long-term prognosis of HF patients.
Key words: air pollution, epidemiology, follow-up studies, heart failure, survival. Environ Health Perspect 116:481–485 (2008) . doi:10.1289/ehp.10918 available via http://dx.doi.org/ [Online 10 January 2008]
