The relationship between long-term exposure to PM2.5 and hypertension in women：A meta-analysis
Yuexiao Ma, Mengqi Sun, Qingqing Liang, Fenghong Wang, Lisen Lin, Tianyu Li, Junchao Duan, Zhiwei Sun
Abstract
Gender difference and PM2.5 exposure all have effects on hypertension, change of estrogen level in different women’s stage bring complex influence on blood pressure. Then we conduct this meta-analysis to investigate the association between long-term exposure (at least one year) to fine particulate matter (PM2.5) and hypertension in adult non-pregnant women. Four major databases: PubMed, Cochrane Library, Web of Science and Embase were searched with specific search terms, and 11 studies were finally selected. The meta-analysis module of software Stata 12.0 was used for data processing with the effect values hazard ratio (HR) and odds ratio (OR) respectively. After sensitivity analysis, we removed a study with highly heterogeneity and finally included 10 studies. Meta-analysis results showed that exposure to PM2.5 (per 10 μg/m3 increase) was associated with hypertension in non-pregnancy adult women, HR = 1.23, 95%CI: 1.08-1.40; OR = 1.07, 95%CI: 1.00–1.14. And subgroup analysis showed that menopause, non-White and diabetes are the key risk factors of hypertension when exposed to PM2.5. This is the first meta-analysis to explore the association between PM2.5 and non-pregnancy women, and calculate OR and HR respectively for the first time. Exposure to PM2.5 could increase the risk of hypertension in non-pregnancy women, and the combined ‘HR’ was much higher than ‘OR’.