Effects of chronic air pollution exposure on respiratory and cardiovascular mortality in the UK. (360G-Wellcome-075883_Z_04_Z)

This study aims to investigate the hypothesis that chronic exposure to air pollution in adult life is associated with increased risks of dying from cardiovascular and respiratory diseases. Most information on the chronic effects of air pollution come from four American and Dutch cohort studies. A recent, unpublished small area UK study using national data on black smoke and sulphur dioxide from 1966 onwards conducted I the proposed host department found larger effects for respiratory than cardiovascular disease, conflicting with the American studies. This proposal will investigate whether estimated cumulative air pollution exposures in adult life are associated with cardiovascular and respiratory deaths in the UK based on individual level analyses. The first part of the study will be the creation of an are-abased annual national air pollution exposure inventory using data available for black smoke and sulphur dioxide from over 3000 individual monitoring sites from 1955 onwards. The inventory will form a resource for use in future studies of chronic air pollution using several UK cohorts. The research will benefit from the departmental work on the small-area UK study and from collaborations with Prof David Briggs, within the host department, and Dr Chris Dore of AEA Technology Environment, key investigators in a study modelling air pollution levels at 1 km grid level across Europe for 1997-2001. The second part of the study will involve an individual-level analysis of the LS cohort to investigate the long-term associations between air pollution and cardiovascular, lung cancer and COPD mortality. The LS contains linked event records for individuals comprising 1% of the population of England with information on mortality and Census returns from 1971, 1981, 1991 and 2001. Air pollution exposures will be linked to place of residence at each Census. Survival analyses will be conducted, adjusted for important individual and area level factors that may influence the observed associations, such as socioeconomic class, occupation, area type (urban or rural) and area deprivation. This part of the study will benefit from collaborations with Prof Strachan and Dr Maheswaran. In the final part of the study, air pollution scores will be linked to phenotype data accumulating in the UK Biobank study, with the intention to develop hypotheses and future grant proposals relating to gene-air pollution interactions. The study will allow quantification of the impacts of chronic air pollution exposure on mortality in the UK with direct relevance to public policy on air pollution.