Association between long-term exposure to ambient air pollution and COVID-19 severity: a prospective cohort study
Chen Chen, John Wang, Jeff Kwong, Jin-Hee Kim, Aaron van Donkelaar, Randall V. Martin, Perry Hystad, Yushan Su, Éric Lavigne, Megan Kirby-McGregor, Jay S. Kaufman, Tarik Benmarhnia, Hong Chen
Abstract
BACKGROUND: The tremendous global health burden related to COVID-19 means that identifying determinants of COVID-19 severity is important for prevention and intervention. We aimed to explore long-term exposure to ambient air pollution as a potential contributor to COVID-19 severity, given its known impact on the respiratory system. METHODS: ), and risk of COVID-19-related hospital admission, intensive care unit (ICU) admission and death. We ascertained individuals' long-term exposures to each air pollutant based on their residence from 2015 to 2019. We used logistic regression and adjusted for confounders and selection bias using various individual and contextual covariates obtained through data linkage. RESULTS: for hospital admission, ICU admission and death, respectively. INTERPRETATION: .