Short-term Exposure to PM1 and Total and Specific Mortality in the Czech Republic

The highest concentrations of PM (particulate matter) in the Czech Republic are in the region of Ostrava and Karvina. One of the objectives of the project is to analyze the impact of ambient fine particles (PM1) on total and specific mortality for cardiovascular and respiratory causes in Ostrava. In the period 2018–2019, there were total (excluding S00-T98 and V01-Y98 according to ICD-10) of 7191 deaths, from these 3035 were cardiovascular (I00-99) and 536 respiratory causes (J00-99) of deaths in Ostrava (around 320,000 inhabitants). The daily PM1 concentrations were measured at three measurement stations. The generalized additive model (GAM) for Poisson distribution was used for the analyses; the “thin plate regression spline” was applied to smooth the pressure, relative humidity and an air temperature. The model was adjusted for meteorological conditions, incidence of acute respiratory infections, days off, the order of a day in a week. The calculations were done for lag0 to lag3 days. The results are presented as a % change in mortality per 10 μg m−3 PM1 with 95% confidence intervals (CI). The analyses were completed using the SW Stata v.14 and SW R v.3.6.1 with the use of mgcv package v.1.8-28. The annual PM1 values ranged from 17.9 to 27.1 μg m−3. Based on the fully adjusted model, a 10 μg m−3 increase of PM1 was significantly associated with an increased total mortality by 1.2% (95% CI: 0.0–2.4%) for lag1, cardiovascular mortality by 1.8% (95% CI: 0.1–3.6%) for lag1 and 1.7% (95% CI: 0.0–3.4%) for lag3 and respiratory mortality by 4.3% (95% CI: 1.0–7.6%) for lag3.The analyses brought new knowledge about the effect of ambient fine particulates (PM1) on a total and specific mortality for cardiovascular and respiratory causes in the Ostrava region.