Department of Sociology, School of Social and Public Administration, East China University of Science and Technology, 130 Meilong Road, Xuhui District, Shanghai, 200237, China; School of Geography and Sustainable Development, University of St Andrews, KY16 9AL, UK.
School of Resource and Environmental Engineering, Wuhan University of Technology, Wuhan, 430070, China.
Environ Res. 2022 Dec;215(Pt 2):114261. doi: 10.1016/j.envres.2022.114261. Epub 2022 Sep 10.
Long-term exposure to air pollution is associated with a higher risk of cognitive impairment; however, the understanding of this association is incomplete. We aimed to explore the relationship between fine particulate matter (PM) exposure and cognitive function using a prospective cohort of ageing adults, including 19,389 respondents in four waves of the China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study (CHARLS, 2011-2018) linked with the historical PM concentrations (2000-2018) in China. By extending the measurement of PM exposure from exposure intensity (averaged PM concentrations) to exposure duration (the number of months with higher PM concentrations), we employed two linear models, the fixed-effect and mixed-effect linear models, to estimate the associations between PM exposure and cognitive impairment, with adjustments for individual and regional covariates. Our findings show that the higher PM intensity was associated with worse cognitive function, but the associations were only statistically significant in a longer exposure period (more than one year), especially in the 10-year exposure (Coefficient: -0.13; 95% Confidence Interval: -0.22, -0.04). Similar patterns were seen for fully adjusted models of PM duration: a longer duration in PM exposure was associated with lower cognitive scores, and the duration with higher cut-off points had stronger effects on cognitive function except for the duration at 75 μg/m, suggesting a possible coincidence of increasing air pollution and economic development. The stronger exposure to PM was associated with poorer cognitive function among Chinese adults, while more work is necessary to explore the causal effect of air pollution, independent of individual and contextual background characteristics.
长期暴露于空气污染与认知障碍的风险增加有关；然而，人们对这种关联的理解并不完整。我们旨在通过对中国健康与退休纵向研究（CHARLS）的一个老龄化成年人队列进行前瞻性研究，包括四波调查（2011-2018 年）中 19389 名受访者，以及中国历史上的细颗粒物（PM）浓度（2000-2018 年），来探讨 PM 暴露与认知功能之间的关系。通过将 PM 暴露的测量从暴露强度（平均 PM 浓度）扩展到暴露持续时间（具有较高 PM 浓度的月数），我们采用了两种线性模型，即固定效应和混合效应线性模型，来估计 PM 暴露与认知障碍之间的关联，并对个体和区域协变量进行了调整。我们的研究结果表明，较高的 PM 强度与较差的认知功能相关，但仅在较长的暴露期（一年以上）才有统计学意义，尤其是在 10 年的暴露期（系数：-0.13；95%置信区间：-0.22，-0.04）。对于 PM 持续时间的完全调整模型，也观察到了类似的模式：PM 暴露持续时间越长，认知评分越低，且在更高的截止点处的暴露时间对认知功能的影响越强，除了 75μg/m 的暴露时间外，这可能表明空气污染和经济发展的增加存在巧合。在中国人中，PM 的暴露越强，认知功能越差，而要探索空气污染的因果效应，还需要做更多的工作，且要独立于个体和背景特征。
