Kheirbek Iyad, Wheeler Katherine, Walters Sarah, Kass Daniel, Matte Thomas
New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, New York, USA.
Air Qual Atmos Health. 2013 Jun;6(2):473-486. doi: 10.1007/s11869-012-0185-4. Epub 2012 Oct 12.
Air quality health impact assessment (HIA) synthesizes information about air pollution exposures, health effects, and population vulnerability for regulatory decision-making and public engagement. HIAs often use annual average county or regional data to estimate health outcome incidence rates that vary substantially by season and at the subcounty level. Using New York City as an example, we assessed the sensitivity of estimated citywide morbidity and mortality attributable to ambient fine particulate matter (PM) and ozone to the geographic (county vs. neighborhood) and temporal (seasonal vs. annual average) resolution of health incidence data. We also used the neighborhood-level analysis to assess variation in estimated air pollution impacts by neighborhood poverty concentration. Estimated citywide health impacts attributable to PM and ozone were relatively insensitive to the geographic resolution of health incidence data. However, the neighborhood-level analysis demonstrated increasing impacts with greater neighborhood poverty levels, particularly for PM-attributable asthma emergency department visits, which were 4.5 times greater in high compared to low-poverty neighborhoods. PM-attributable health impacts were similar using seasonal and annual average incidence rates. Citywide ozone-attributable asthma morbidity was estimated to be 15 % lower when calculated from seasonal, compared to annual average incidence rates, as asthma morbidity rates are lower during the summer ozone season than the annual average rate. Within the ozone season, 57 % of estimated ozone-attributable emergency department for asthma in children occurred in the April-June period when average baseline incidence rates are higher than in the July-September period when ozone concentrations are higher. These analyses underscore the importance of utilizing spatially and temporally resolved data in local air quality impact assessments to characterize the overall city burden and identify areas of high vulnerability.
空气质量健康影响评估（HIA）综合有关空气污染暴露、健康影响和人群脆弱性的信息，以用于监管决策和公众参与。HIA通常使用年度平均县或区域数据来估计健康结果发病率，而这些发病率在季节和县级以下层面有很大差异。以纽约市为例，我们评估了归因于环境细颗粒物（PM）和臭氧的全市发病率和死亡率估计值对健康发病率数据的地理（县与社区）和时间（季节与年度平均）分辨率的敏感性。我们还使用社区层面的分析来评估按社区贫困集中度估计的空气污染影响的变化。归因于PM和臭氧的全市健康影响估计值对健康发病率数据的地理分辨率相对不敏感。然而，社区层面的分析表明，随着社区贫困水平的提高，影响也在增加，特别是对于归因于PM的哮喘急诊就诊，高贫困社区的此类就诊次数比低贫困社区高4.5倍。使用季节性和年度平均发病率时，归因于PM的健康影响相似。与年度平均发病率相比，根据季节性发病率计算时，全市归因于臭氧的哮喘发病率估计低15%，因为夏季臭氧季节的哮喘发病率低于年度平均发病率。在臭氧季节内，估计归因于臭氧的儿童哮喘急诊就诊中有57%发生在4月至6月期间，此时平均基线发病率高于7月至9月期间，而7月至9月期间臭氧浓度较高。这些分析强调了在当地空气质量影响评估中利用空间和时间分辨率数据来描述城市总体负担并识别高脆弱性地区的重要性。
