Estimating years of life lost from cardiovascular mortality related to air pollution in Guangzhou, China.

Previous studies have mainly used mortality or morbidity as the health outcome to examine the air pollution-health association. Little evidence is available on relationships between air pollutants and years of life lost (YLL). We aimed to estimate the YLL from cardiovascular mortality due to air pollution. Daily data on weather and air pollutants and individual data of all registered deaths for years 2004-2007 were obtained in Guangzhou, China. The generalized additive model was used to assess the YLL associated with 10μg/m increases in NO, SO and PM. We found that the mean daily YLL was 248, 87.5 and 73.7 for deaths from cardiovascular disease (CVD), stroke and ischemic heart disease (IHD), respectively. A significant linear correlation was observed between air pollution and YLL due to cardiovascular disease. The effects of air pollutants on YLL were immediate and lasted for two days. A 10μg/m increase above the corresponding threshold of 55.6μg/m, 40.4μg/m and 0μg/m in NO, PM and SO was related to YLL increase of 1.8 (95% CI: 0.8-2.9), 2.8 (1.7-3.8) and 2.6 (1.2-4.0) years at lag 0-1days for CVD, respectively. The estimates of YLL associated with NO and PM were higher in men than women. The air pollutants-related YLL was higher among young people and those with low education level, compared to the elderly and those with high education level, respectively. These findings confirmed YLL provides a complementary strategy for assessing the health effect of air pollution. This study underscores the necessity of the reduction of air pollution benefiting public health.