Air Pollution and Suicide in Mexico City: A Time Series Analysis, 2000–2016

Claudia Iveth Astudillo-García, Laura Andrea Rodríguez-Villamizar, Marlene Cortez-Lugo, Julio César Cruz- De la Cruz and Julián Alfredo Fernández-Niño
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Claudia Iveth Astudillo-García: Servicios de Atención Psiquiátrica, Secretaría de Salud, Ciudad de México 11410, Mexico
Laura Andrea Rodríguez-Villamizar: Departamento de Salud Pública, Escuela de Medicina, Universidad Industrial de Santander, Bucaramanga 680002, Colombia
Marlene Cortez-Lugo: Dirección de Salud Ambiental, Centro de Investigación en Salud Poblacional, Instituto Nacional de Salud Pública, Cuernavaca 62100, Mexico
Julio César Cruz- De la Cruz: Dirección de Salud Ambiental, Centro de Investigación en Salud Poblacional, Instituto Nacional de Salud Pública, Cuernavaca 62100, Mexico
Julián Alfredo Fernández-Niño: Departamento de Salud Pública, Universidad del Norte, Barranquilla 081007, Colombia

IJERPH, 2019, vol. 16, issue 16, 1-12

Abstract: The association between air pollution and suicide has recently been under examination, and the findings continue to be contradictory. In order to contribute evidence to this still unresolved question, the objective of the present study was to evaluate the association between air quality and daily suicides registered in Mexico City (MC) between 2000 and 2016. Air quality was measured based on exposure to particulate matter under 2.5 and 10 micrometers (µm) (PM 2.5 and PM 10 , respectively), ozone (O 3 ), nitrogen dioxide (NO 2 ), and sulfur dioxide (SO 2 ), adjusting for weather variables (air temperature and relative humidity), and holidays. To this end, an ecologic time series analysis was performed using a Poisson regression model conditioned by time and stratified by gender and age groups. Models were also generated to explore the lagged and accumulative effects of air pollutants, adjusted by weather variables. The effects of the pollutants were very close to the null value in the majority of the models, and no accumulative effects were identified. We believe these results, in this case, no evidence of a statistical association, contribute to the current debate about whether the association between air pollution and suicide reported in the scientific literature reflects an actual effect or an uncontrolled confounding effect.

Keywords: suicide; air pollution; confounding factors (epidemiology); Mexico (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
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