Effects of long-term exposure to air pollutants on the spatial spread of COVID-19 in Catalonia, Spain.,Environmental Research

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Effects of long-term exposure to air pollutants on the spatial spread of COVID-19 in Catalonia, Spain.
Environmental Research ( IF 7.7 ) Pub Date : 2020-09-12 , DOI: 10.1016/j.envres.2020.110177
Marc Saez ₁ , Aurelio Tobias ₂ , Maria A Barceló ₁

Affiliation

Background

The risk of infection and death by COVID-19 could be associated with a heterogeneous distribution at a small area level of environmental, socioeconomic and demographic factors. Our objective was to investigate, at a small area level, whether long-term exposure to air pollutants increased the risk of COVID-19 incidence and death in Catalonia, Spain, controlling for socioeconomic and demographic factors.

Methods

We used a mixed longitudinal ecological design with the study population consisting of small areas in Catalonia for the period February 25 to May 16, 2020. We estimated Generalized Linear Mixed models in which we controlled for a wide range of observed and unobserved confounders as well as spatial and temporal dependence.

Results

We have found that long-term exposure to nitrogen dioxide (NO₂) and, to a lesser extent, to coarse particles (PM₁₀) have been independent predictors of the spatial spread of COVID-19. For every 1 μm/m³ above the mean the risk of a positive test case increased by 2.7% (95% credibility interval, ICr: 0.8%, 4.7%) for NO₂ and 3.0% (95% ICr: -1.4%,7.44%) for PM₁₀. Regions with levels of NO₂ exposure in the third and fourth quartile had 28.8% and 35.7% greater risk of a death, respectively, than regions located in the first two quartiles.

Conclusion

Although it is possible that there are biological mechanisms that explain, at least partially, the association between long-term exposure to air pollutants and COVID-19, we hypothesize that the spatial spread of COVID-19 in Catalonia is attributed to the different ease with which some people, the hosts of the virus, have infected others. That facility depends on the heterogeneous distribution at a small area level of variables such as population density, poor housing and the mobility of its residents, for which exposure to pollutants has been a surrogate.

中文翻译：

长期接触空气污染物对西班牙加泰罗尼亚 COVID-19 空间传播的影响。

背景

COVID-19 感染和死亡的风险可能与环境、社会经济和人口因素的小区域分布不均匀有关。我们的目标是在小范围内调查长期暴露于空气污染物是否会增加西班牙加泰罗尼亚 COVID-19 发病和死亡的风险，同时控制社会经济和人口因素。

方法

我们使用混合纵向生态设计，研究人群由 2020 年 2 月 25 日至 5 月 16 日期间的加泰罗尼亚小区域组成。我们估计了广义线性混合模型，其中我们控制了广泛的观察到和未观察到的混杂因素以及空间和时间依赖性。

结果

我们发现，长期接触二氧化氮 (NO ₂ ) 以及在较小程度上接触粗颗粒 (PM ₁₀ ) 是 COVID-19 空间传播的独立预测因素。对于NO ₂和 3.0%（95% ICr：-1.4% ^， 7.44%) 用于 PM ₁₀。NO ₂暴露水平在第三和第四四分位数的地区比位于前两个四分位数的地区的死亡风险分别高出 28.8% 和 35.7%。