Long-term exposure to air pollution and severe COVID-19 in Catalonia: a population-based cohort study

Otavio Ranzani, Anna Alari, Sergio Olmos, Carles Milà, Alex Rico, Joan Ballester, Xavier Basagaña, Carlos Chaccour, Payam Dadvand, Talita Duarte-Salles, Maria Foraster, Mark Nieuwenhuijsen, Jordi Sunyer, Antònia Valentín, Manolis Kogevinas, Uxue Lazcano, Carla Avellaneda-Gómez, Rosa Vivanco and Cathryn Tonne ()
Additional contact information
Otavio Ranzani: ISGlobal
Anna Alari: ISGlobal
Sergio Olmos: ISGlobal
Carles Milà: ISGlobal
Alex Rico: ISGlobal
Joan Ballester: ISGlobal
Xavier Basagaña: ISGlobal
Carlos Chaccour: ISGlobal
Payam Dadvand: ISGlobal
Talita Duarte-Salles: Fundació Institut Universitari per a la recerca a l’Atenció Primària de Salut Jordi Gol i Gurina (IDIAPJGol)
Maria Foraster: ISGlobal
Mark Nieuwenhuijsen: ISGlobal
Jordi Sunyer: ISGlobal
Antònia Valentín: ISGlobal
Manolis Kogevinas: ISGlobal
Uxue Lazcano: Grupo Atención Primaria
Carla Avellaneda-Gómez: Consorci Sanitari Integral
Rosa Vivanco: Agency for Health Quality and Assessment of Catalonia (AQuAS)
Cathryn Tonne: ISGlobal

Nature Communications, 2023, vol. 14, issue 1, 1-9

Abstract: Abstract The association between long-term exposure to ambient air pollutants and severe COVID-19 is uncertain. We followed 4,660,502 adults from the general population in 2020 in Catalonia, Spain. Cox proportional models were fit to evaluate the association between annual averages of PM2.5, NO2, BC, and O3 at each participant’s residential address and severe COVID-19. Higher exposure to PM2.5, NO2, and BC was associated with an increased risk of COVID-19 hospitalization, ICU admission, death, and hospital length of stay. An increase of 3.2 µg/m3 of PM2.5 was associated with a 19% (95% CI, 16–21) increase in hospitalizations. An increase of 16.1 µg/m3 of NO2 was associated with a 42% (95% CI, 30–55) increase in ICU admissions. An increase of 0.7 µg/m3 of BC was associated with a 6% (95% CI, 0–13) increase in deaths. O3 was positively associated with severe outcomes when adjusted by NO2. Our study contributes robust evidence that long-term exposure to air pollutants is associated with severe COVID-19.

Date: 2023
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-023-38469-7 Abstract (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:natcom:v:14:y:2023:i:1:d:10.1038_s41467-023-38469-7

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/ncomms/

DOI: 10.1038/s41467-023-38469-7

Access Statistics for this article

Nature Communications is currently edited by Nathalie Le Bot, Enda Bergin and Fiona Gillespie

More articles in Nature Communications from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().