Skip to main content

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

Effects of ambient air pollution measurement error on health effect estimates in time-series studies: a simulation-based analysis

Journal of Exposure Science & Environmental Epidemiology volume 25, pages 160–166 (2015)Cite this article

Subjects

Abstract

In this study, we investigated bias caused by spatial variability and spatial heterogeneity in outdoor air-pollutant concentrations, instrument imprecision, and choice of daily pollutant metric on risk ratio (RR) estimates obtained from a Poisson time-series analysis. Daily concentrations for 12 pollutants were simulated for Atlanta, Georgia, at 5 km resolution during a 6-year period. Viewing these as being representative of the true concentrations, a population-level pollutant health effect (RR) was specified, and daily counts of health events were simulated. Error representative of instrument imprecision was added to the simulated concentrations at the locations of fixed site monitors in Atlanta, and these mismeasured values were combined to create three different city-wide daily metrics (central monitor, unweighted average, and population-weighted average). Given our assumptions, the median bias in the RR per unit increase in concentration was found to be lowest for the population-weighted average metric. Although the Berkson component of error caused bias away from the null in the log-linear models, the net bias due to measurement error tended to be towards the null. The relative differences in bias among the metrics were lessened, although not eliminated, by scaling results to interquartile range increases in concentration.

This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution

Relevant articles

Open Access articles citing this article.

Access options

Rent or buy this article

Prices vary by article type

from$1.95

to$39.95

Learn more

Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout

Figure 1
Figure 2

References

  1. Zeger SL, Thomas D, Dominici F, Samet JM, Schwartz J, Dockery D et al. Exposure measurement error in time-series studies of air pollution: concepts and consequences. Environ Health Perspect 2000; 108: 419–426.

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  2. Sheppard L, Slaughter JC, Schildcrout J, Liu LJ, Lumley T . Exposure and measurement contributions to estimates of acute air pollution effects. J Expo Anal Environ Epidemiol 2005; 15: 366–376.

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  3. Berrocal VJ, Gelfand AE, Holland DM, Burke J, Miranda ML . On the use of a PM(2.5) exposure simulator to explain birthweight. Environmetrics 2011; 22: 553–571.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  4. Zeger SL, Diggle PJ . Correction: exposure measurement error in time-series air pollution studies. Environ Health Perspect 2001; 109: A517.

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  5. Sheppard L, Burnett RT, Szpiro AA, Kim SY, Jerrett M, Pope CA, 3rd et al. Confounding and exposure measurement error in air pollution epidemiology. Air Qual Atmos Health 2012; 5: 203–216.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  6. Carrothers TJ, Evans JS . Assessing the impact of differential measurement error on estimates of fine particle mortality. J Air Waste Manag Assoc 2000; 50: 65–74.

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  7. Goldman GT, Mulholland JA, Russell AG, Srivastava A, Strickland MJ, Klein M et al. Ambient air pollutant measurement error: characterization and impacts in a time-series epidemiologic study in Atlanta. Environ Sci Technol 2010; 44: 7692–7698.

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  8. Peng RD, Bell ML . Spatial misalignment in time series studies of air pollution and health data. Biostatistics 2010; 11: 720–740.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  9. Bell ML, Ebisu K, Peng RD . Community-level spatial heterogeneity of chemical constituent levels of fine particulates and implications for epidemiological research. J Expo Sci Environ Epidemiol 2011; 21: 372–384.

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  10. Goldman GT, Mulholland JA, Russell AG, Strickland MJ, Klein M, Waller LA et al. Impact of exposure measurement error in air pollution epidemiology: effect of error type in time-series studies. Environ Health 2011; 10: 61.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  11. Armstrong BG . Effect of measurement error on epidemiological studies of environmental and occupational exposures. Occup Environ Med 1998; 55: 651–656.

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  12. Remy N . S-GEMS: the Stanford Geostatistical Modeling Software: a tool for new algorithms development. In: Leuangthong O, Deutsch C, (eds).. Geostatistics Banff 2004: 7th International Geostatistics Conference, Quantitative Geology and Geostatistics. Springer: Banff. 2005 pp 865–871.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  13. Goldman GT, Mulholland JA, Russell AG, Gass K, Strickland MJ, Tolbert PE . Characterization of ambient air pollution measurement error in a time-series health study using a geostatistical simulation approach. Atmos Environ 2012; 57: 101–108.

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  14. Soares A . Direct sequential simulation and cosimulation. Mathematic Geol 2001; 33: 911–926.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  15. Metzger KB, Tolbert PE, Klein M, Peel JL, Flanders WD, Todd K et al. Ambient air pollution and cardiovascular emergency department visits. Epidemiology 2004; 15: 46–56.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  16. Tolbert PE, Klein M, Peel JL, Sarnat SE, Sarnat JA . Multipollutant modeling issues in a study of ambient air quality and emergency department visits in Atlanta. J Expo Sci Environ Epidemiol 2007; 17 (Suppl 2): S29–S35.

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  17. Deddens JA, Hornung RW . Quantitative expamples of continuous exposure measurement errors that bias risk estimates away from the null. In: Smith CM, Christiani DC, Kelsey KT, (eds).. Chemical Risk Assessment of Occupational Health. Greenwood Publishing Group, Inc: Westport, CT. 1994 pp 77–86.

    Google Scholar 

  18. Carroll RJ, Ruppert D, Stefanski LA . Measurement Error in Nonlinear Models. Chapman and Hall: New York. 1995.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  19. Ivy D, Mulholland JA, Russell AG . Development of ambient air quality population-weighted metrics for use in time-series health studies. J Air Waste Manage 2008; 58: 711–720.

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  20. Strickland MJ, Darrow LA, Mulholland JA, Klein M, Flanders WD, Winquist A et al. Implications of different approaches for characterizing ambient air pollutant concentrations within the urban airshed for time-series studies and health benefits analyses. Environ Health 2011; 10: 36.

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgements

The authors acknowledge financial support from the following grants: NIEHS K01ES019877, USEPA grant R834799, and EPRI EP-P277231/C13172. The contents of the publication are solely the responsibility of the grantee and do not necessarily represent the official views of the USEPA. Further, USEPA does not endorse the purchase of any commercial products or services mentioned in this publication.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Environmental Health, Rollins School of Public Health, Emory University, Atlanta, Georgia, USA

    Matthew J Strickland

  2. Department of Epidemiology, Rollins School of Public Health, Emory University, Atlanta, Georgia, USA

    Katherine M Gass

  3. School of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, Georgia, USA

    Gretchen T Goldman & James A Mulholland

Authors
  1. Matthew J Strickland
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Katherine M Gass
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Gretchen T Goldman
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  4. James A Mulholland
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Matthew J Strickland.

Ethics declarations

Competing interests

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and Permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Strickland, M., Gass, K., Goldman, G. et al. Effects of ambient air pollution measurement error on health effect estimates in time-series studies: a simulation-based analysis. J Expo Sci Environ Epidemiol 25, 160–166 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1038/jes.2013.16

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Revised:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/jes.2013.16

Keywords

This article is cited by

Search

Advanced search

Quick links