ArticlePloS one2018
Ambient air pollution exposure and emergency department visits for substance abuse.
Article in PloS one, 2018. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 14 papers.
What it found
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Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
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Who cites it
14 citing papers in PubMed.
- Urban air pollution and emergency department visits related to central nervous system diseases.PloS one · 2022Trial
- Association of short-term ambient environmental exposures with suicide and drug overdose deaths among U.S. veterans.American journal of epidemiology · 2026Article
- Prenatal environmental risk for adolescent attention, thought, and substance use problems: A mixtures approach to coexposure and psychiatric comorbidities.Environmental epidemiology (Philadelphia, Pa.) · 2025Article
- Functional Brain Connectivity Predictors of Prospective Substance Use Initiation and Their Environmental Correlates.Biological psychiatry. Cognitive neuroscience and neuroimaging · 2025Article
- Thinking Health-related Behaviors in a Climate Change Context: A Narrative Review.Annals of behavioral medicine : a publication of the Society of Behavioral Medicine · 2023Review
- Air pollution and refraining from visiting health facilities: a cross-sectional study of domestic migrants in China.BMC public health · 2022Article
- Cold Climate Impact on Air-Pollution-Related Health Outcomes: A Scoping Review.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2022Article
- Associations between air pollution and multimorbidity in the UK Biobank: A cross-sectional study.Frontiers in public health · 2022Article
- Climate change, environment pollution, COVID-19 pandemic and mental health.The Science of the total environment · 2021Review
- Air Pollution and Emergency Department Visits for Disease of the Genitourinary System.Environmental health insights · 2021Article
- The association between ozone and fine particles and mental health-related emergency department visits in California, 2005-2013.PloS one · 2021Article
- Long-Term Ambient Air Pollution Exposures and Brain Imaging Markers in Korean Adults: The Environmental Pollution-Induced Neurological EFfects (EPINEF) Study.Environmental health perspectives · 2020Article
- Air Pollution and Emergency Department Visits for Mental Disorders among Youth.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2020Article
- Air pollutants and daily number of admissions to psychiatric emergency services: evidence for detrimental mental health effects of ozone.Epidemiology and psychiatric sciences · 2019Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
4 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
There is growing evidence supporting the notion that exposure to air pollution can contribute to cognitive and psychiatric disorders, including depression and suicide. Given the relationship between exposure to acute stressors and substance abuse, the present study assessed the association between exposure to ambient air pollution and emergency department (ED) visits for alcohol and drug abuse. ED visit data selected according to International Classification of Disease (ICD-9) coding 303 (alcohol dependence syndromes) and 305 (non-dependent abuse of drugs) were collected in five hospitals in Edmonton, Canada. A time-stratified case crossover design was used. Conditional logistic regression was applied to calculate odds ratios (OR) and 95% confidence intervals (95% CI). Season, temperature, and relative humidity were adjusted for using natural splines. Results are reported for an increase in pollutant concentrations equivalent to one interquartile range (IQR). Statistically significant positive associations with substance abuse were observed for CO, NO2 and particulate matter with an aerodynamic diameter less than 10 μm (PM10) and 2.5 μm (PM2.5). The strongest results were obtained in the cold period (October-March) for 1-day lagged CO (OR = 1.03, 95% CI: 1.01, 1.05, IQR = 0.4 ppm) and NO2 (OR = 1.04, 95% CI: 1.01, 1.07, IQR = 12.8 ppb); ORs were also significant for CO and NO2 with lags of 2 to 6 days and 2 to 7 days, respectively. The study suggests that, even at low levels, increases in ambient CO, NO2, and PMs are associated with increased hospital admissions for substance abuse, possibly as a result of impacts of air quality on mental health or depression.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.