Publications by authors named "Bert Brunekreef"

Article Synopsis
  • * Using advanced statistical models, researchers analyzed data over a significant follow-up period, revealing that lung cancer incidence was positively linked to fine particulate matter (PM), nitrogen dioxide (NO₂), and black carbon (BC), while showing a negative association with ozone (O) which flipped after adjusting for NO.
  • * The results indicated that the increased risk of lung cancer incidence was nearly as strong as that for mortality, with both associations remaining significant even at lower pollution levels, suggesting that air quality should be a crucial public health consideration.
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  • The study examined the link between long-term air pollution exposure and end-stage kidney disease (ESKD) in two large European cohorts, highlighting the burden ESKD poses on patients and healthcare systems.
  • In the Austrian cohort (VHM&PP), increased black carbon and nitrogen dioxide showed potential associations with ESKD, but findings were not statistically significant.
  • Conversely, in the Italian cohort (RoLS), fine particulate matter was significantly associated with ESKD, indicating that the impact of air pollution on kidney health may differ based on the specific pollutants present in different regions.
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Despite the known link between air pollution and cause-specific mortality, its relation to chronic kidney disease (CKD)-associated mortality is understudied. Therefore, we investigated the association between long-term exposure to air pollution and CKD-related mortality in a large multicentre population-based European cohort. Cohort data were linked to local mortality registry data.

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  • A study conducted in Jakarta examined the impact of traffic-related air pollution on infant infections during their first six months of life, involving 298 mother-infant pairs from March 2016 to September 2020.
  • The results indicated that higher levels of particulate matter (PM) and nitrogen oxides (NO) were associated with an increased risk of upper respiratory tract infections (URTI), particularly noting a significant relationship with soot exposure between 4-6 months of age.
  • While URTIs were common (35.6%), lower respiratory tract infections and gastrointestinal infections were less frequent, suggesting a need for further exploration of air pollution's total impact on infant health.
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Objectives: To explore the associations of long-term exposure to air pollution with onset of all human health conditions.

Design: Prospective phenome-wide association study.

Setting: Denmark.

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Air pollution has been shown to significantly impact human health including cancer. Gastric and upper aerodigestive tract (UADT) cancers are common and increased risk has been associated with smoking and occupational exposures. However, the association with air pollution remains unclear.

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Leukemia and lymphoma are the two most common forms of hematologic malignancy, and their etiology is largely unknown. Pathophysiological mechanisms suggest a possible association with air pollution, but little empirical evidence is available. We aimed to investigate the association between long-term residential exposure to outdoor air pollution and risk of leukemia and lymphoma.

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Background: Studies across the globe generally reported increased mortality risks associated with particulate matter with aerodynamic diameter () exposure with large heterogeneity in the magnitude of reported associations and the shape of concentration-response functions (CRFs). We aimed to evaluate the impact of key study design factors (including confounders, applied exposure model, population age, and outcome definition) on effect estimates by harmonizing analyses on three previously published large studies in Canada [Mortality-Air Pollution Associations in Low Exposure Environments (MAPLE), 1991-2016], the United States (Medicare, 2000-2016), and Europe [Effects of Low-Level Air Pollution: A Study in Europe (ELAPSE), 2000-2016] as much as possible.

Methods: We harmonized the study populations to individuals years of age, applied the same satellite-derived exposure estimates, and selected the same sets of potential confounders and the same outcome.

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It is unclear whether cancers of the upper aerodigestive tract (UADT) and gastric cancer are related to air pollution, due to few studies with inconsistent results. The effects of particulate matter (PM) may vary across locations due to different source contributions and related PM compositions, and it is not clear which PM constituents/sources are most relevant from a consideration of overall mass concentration alone. We therefore investigated the association of UADT and gastric cancers with PM elemental constituents and sources components indicative of different sources within a large multicentre population based epidemiological study.

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Ambient air pollution is a major public health concern and comprehensive new legislation is currently being considered to improve air quality in Europe. The European Respiratory Society (ERS), Health Effects Institute (HEI), and International Society for Environmental Epidemiology (ISEE) organised a joint meeting on May 24, 2023 in Brussels, Belgium, to review and critically evaluate the latest evidence on the health effects of air pollution and discuss ongoing revisions of the European Ambient Air Quality Directives (AAQDs). A multi-disciplinary expert group of air pollution and health researchers, patient and medical societies, and policy representatives participated.

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Background: Air pollution is a growing concern worldwide, with significant impacts on human health. Multiple myeloma is a type of blood cancer with increasing incidence. Studies have linked air pollution exposure to various types of cancer, including leukemia and lymphoma, however, the relationship with multiple myeloma incidence has not been extensively investigated.

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Background: Risk factors for malignant tumours of the central nervous system (CNS) are largely unknown.

Methods: We pooled six European cohorts (N = 302,493) and assessed the association between residential exposure to nitrogen dioxide (NO), fine particles (PM), black carbon (BC), ozone (O) and eight elemental components of PM (copper, iron, potassium, nickel, sulfur, silicon, vanadium, and zinc) and malignant intracranial CNS tumours defined according to the International Classification of Diseases ICD-9/ICD-10 codes 192.1/C70.

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Background: Early ecological studies have suggested links between air pollution and risk of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), but evidence from individual-level cohort studies is still sparse. We examined whether long-term exposure to air pollution is associated with risk of COVID-19 and who is most susceptible.

Methods: We followed 3 721 810 Danish residents aged ≥30 years on 1 March 2020 in the National COVID-19 Surveillance System until the date of first positive test (incidence), COVID-19 hospitalisation or death until 26 April 2021.

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Background: Ambient air pollution exposure has been associated with childhood asthma, but previous studies have primarily focused on prevalence of asthma and asthma-related outcomes and urban traffic-related exposures.

Objective: We examined nationwide associations between pre- and postnatal exposure to ambient air pollution components and asthma incidence in children age 0-19 y.

Methods: Asthma incidence was identified from hospital admission, emergency room, and outpatient contacts among all live-born singletons born in Denmark between 1998 and 2016.

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Gamma glutamyl transferase (GGT) is related to oxidative stress and an indicator for liver damage. We investigated the association between air pollution and GGT in a large Austrian cohort (N = 116,109) to better understand how air pollution affects human health. Data come from voluntary prevention visits that were routinely collected within the Vorarlberg Health Monitoring and Prevention Program (VHM&PP).

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Background: Long-term exposure to air pollution and noise is detrimental to health; but studies that evaluated both remain limited. This study explores associations with natural and cause-specific mortality for a range of air pollutants and transportation noise.

Methods: Over 4 million adults in Switzerland were followed from 2000 to 2014.

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Most studies investigating the health effects of long-term exposure to air pollution used traditional regression models, although causal inference approaches have been proposed as alternative. However, few studies have applied causal models and comparisons with traditional methods are sparse. We therefore compared the associations between natural-cause mortality and exposure to fine particulate matter (PM) and nitrogen dioxide (NO) using traditional Cox and causal models in a large multicenter cohort setting.

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Background: Few comparisons between causal inference and traditional approaches have been performed. We applied "causal" and "traditional" methods to investigate the association between long-term air pollution exposure (PM and NO) and mortality.

Methods: We analyzed pooled data from eight well-characterized cohorts and one administrative cohort.

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Background: Ambient air pollution has been recognized as one of the most important environmental health threats. Exposure in early life may affect pregnancy outcomes and the health of the offspring. The main objective of our study was to assess the association between prenatal exposure to traffic related air pollutants during pregnancy on birth weight and length.

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Article Synopsis
  • Fine particulate matter (PM) is linked to increased risk of early death, but it's unclear which specific PM components are most harmful.
  • A study in Denmark analyzed the long-term exposure of residents to eight elemental PM components and their relationship with various causes of mortality, such as cardiovascular disease, respiratory diseases, and psychiatric disorders, using advanced modeling techniques.
  • The findings revealed that silicon (Si) and potassium (K) were significantly associated with natural mortality, while iron (Fe), zinc (Zn), nickel (Ni), and vanadium (V) also showed relevance in specific mortality causes, especially highlighting strong ties to psychiatric disorder deaths.
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