Hydrogen sulfide and traffic-related air pollutants in association with increased mortality: a case-crossover study in Reykjavik, Iceland.

• Published in: BMJ Open
• Main Authors: Finnbjornsdottir, Ragnhildur Gudrun, Oudin, Anna, Elvarsson, Bjarki Thor, Gislason, Thorarinn, Rafnsson, Vilhjalmur
• Other Authors: 1 Univ Iceland, Ctr Publ Hlth Sci, Reykjavik, Iceland 2 Umea Univ, Dept Publ Hlth & Clin Med, Occupat & Environm Med, Umea, Sweden 3 Univ Iceland, Inst Sci, IS-107 Reykjavik, Iceland 4 Univ Iceland, Fac Med, Reykjavik, Iceland 5 Landspitali Univ Hosp, Dept Allergy & Resp Med & Sleep, Reykjavik, Iceland 6 Univ Iceland, Dept Prevent Med, Reykjavik, Iceland
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: BMJ Publishing Group 2015
• Subjects: Loftmengun; Hitaveitur; Air Pollution; Cross-Over Studies; Geothermal Energy; Hydrogen Sulfide; Power Plants; Registries; Iceland
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/2336/560794; https://doi.org/10.1136/bmjopen-2014-007272

To access publisher's full text version of this article, please click on the hyperlink in Additional Links field or click on the hyperlink at the top of the page marked Files. This article is open access. To study the association between daily mortality and short-term increases in air pollutants, both traffic-related and the geothermal source-specific hydrogen sulfide (H₂S). Population-based, time stratified case-crossover. A lag time to 4 days was considered. Seasonal, gender and age stratification were calculated. Also, the best-fit lag when introducing H₂S >7 µg/m(3) was selected by the Akaike Information Criterion (AIC). The population of the greater Reykjavik area (n=181,558) during 2003-2009. Cases were defined as individuals living in the Reykjavik capital area, 18 years or older (N=138,657), who died due to all natural causes (ICD-10 codes A00-R99) other than injury, poisoning and certain other consequences of external causes, or cardiovascular disease (ICD-10 codes I00-I99) during the study period. Percentage increases in risk of death (IR%) following an interquartile range increase in pollutants. The total number of deaths due to all natural causes was 7679 and due to cardiovascular diseases was 3033. The interquartile range increased concentrations of H₂S (2.6 µg/m(3)) were associated with daily all natural cause mortality in the Reykjavik capital area. The IR% was statistically significant during the summer season (lag 1: IR%=5.05, 95% CI 0.61 to 9.68; lag 2: IR%=5.09, 95% CI 0.44 to 9.97), among males (lag 0: IR%=2.26, 95% CI 0.23 to 4.44), and among the elderly (lag 0: IR%=1.94, 95% CI 0.12 to 1.04; lag 1: IR%=1.99, 95% CI 0.21 to 1.04), when adjusted for traffic-related pollutants and meteorological variables. The traffic-related pollutants were generally not associated with statistical significant IR%s. The results suggest that ambient H₂S air pollution may increase mortality in Reykjavik, Iceland. To the best of our knowledge, ambient H₂S exposure has not previously been ...