Jung Soon-Won, Lee Kyoungho, Cho Yong-Sung, Choi Ji-Hee, Yang Wonho, Kang Tack-Shin, Park Choonghee, Kim Geun-Bae, Yu Seung-Do, Son Bu-Soon
Environmental Health Research Division, National Institute of Environment Research, 42, Hwangyeong-ro, Incheon 22689, Korea.
Occupational Epidemiology, Samsung Health Research Institute, Samsung Electronics, Giheung City 17113, Korea.
Int J Environ Res Public Health. 2016 Jul 19;13(7):728. doi: 10.3390/ijerph13070728.
Spatial interpolation is employed to improve exposure estimates and to assess adverse health effects associated with environmental risk factors. Since various studies have reported that high ozone (O₃) concentrations can give rise to adverse effects on respiratory symptoms and lung function, we investigated the association between O₃ levels and lung function using a variety of spatial interpolation techniques and evaluated how different methods for estimating exposure may influence health results for a cohort from an industrial complex (Gwangyang Bay) in South Korea in 2009. To estimate daily concentrations of O₃ in each subject, four different methods were used, which include simple averaging, nearest neighbor, inverse distance weighting, and kriging. Also, to compare the association between O₃ levels and lung function by age-groups, we explored ozone's impacts on three age-related groups: children (9-14 years), adults (15-64 years), and the elderly (≥65 years). The overall change of effect size on lung function in each age group tended to show similar patterns for lag and methods for estimating exposure. A significant negative association was only observed between O₃ levels and FVC and FEV₁ for most of the lag and methods in children. The largest effect of O₃ levels was found at the average for the lung function test day and last 2 days (0-2 days). In conclusions, the spatial interpolation methods may benefit in providing individual-level exposure with appropriate temporal resolution from ambient monitors. However, time-activity patterns of residents, monitoring site locations, methodological choices, and other factors should be considered to minimize exposure misclassification.
采用空间插值法来改进暴露估计，并评估与环境风险因素相关的不良健康影响。由于各种研究报告称，高浓度臭氧（O₃）会对呼吸道症状和肺功能产生不良影响，我们使用多种空间插值技术研究了O₃水平与肺功能之间的关联，并评估了不同的暴露估计方法可能如何影响2009年韩国一个工业园区（光阳湾）队列的健康结果。为了估计每个受试者的每日O₃浓度，使用了四种不同的方法，包括简单平均法、最近邻法、反距离加权法和克里金法。此外，为了按年龄组比较O₃水平与肺功能之间的关联，我们探讨了臭氧对三个与年龄相关的组的影响：儿童（9 - 14岁）、成年人（15 - 64岁）和老年人（≥65岁）。每个年龄组肺功能效应大小的总体变化在滞后和暴露估计方法方面往往呈现相似的模式。在儿童中，对于大多数滞后和方法，仅在O₃水平与用力肺活量（FVC）和第一秒用力呼气容积（FEV₁）之间观察到显著的负相关。O₃水平的最大影响出现在肺功能测试日及最后两天（0 - 2天）的平均值时。总之，空间插值方法可能有助于从环境监测器提供具有适当时间分辨率的个体水平暴露。然而，应考虑居民的时间活动模式、监测站点位置、方法选择和其他因素，以尽量减少暴露误分类。
