ArticlePloS one2020
Concentrations of criteria pollutants in the contiguous U.S., 1979 - 2015: Role of prediction model parsimony in integrated empirical geographic regression.
Article in PloS one, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 94 papers, 2 of them syntheses that pooled it.
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Who cites it
94 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.
- Can a single pollen measurement site provide exposure information for health research across an entire state? Results from a study of allergic-type asthma associated with thunderstorms (2007-2018).Journal of exposure science & environmental epidemiology · 2026Pooled it
- Exposure to Outdoor Particulate Matter Air Pollution and Risk of Gastrointestinal Cancers in Adults: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of Epidemiologic Evidence.Environmental health perspectives · 2022Pooled it
- Associations of Outdoor Air Pollution With Incidence of Cancers Other Than Lung Cancer in a Large US Prospective Cohort.International journal of cancer · 2026Article
- Neighborhood Ambient Air Pollution and Post-Transplant Outcomes in Older Kidney Transplant Recipients.Journal of the American Geriatrics Society · 2026Article
- Blood metabolomic signatures linking air pollution to lung cancer in the Cancer Prevention Studies.Nature communications · 2026Article
- Applying Satellite-Derived PMGeoHealth · 2026Article
- Agricultural pesticide use and Alzheimer's disease dementia prevalence across US counties in a mixed supervised-unsupervised analysis.Scientific reports · 2026Article
- Four-Decade (1980-2023) Surface Ozone Concentrations across the Contiguous United States: Fine-Resolution Estimates and Health Implications.Environmental science & technology · 2026Article
- How do counties' industrial structures shape geographic disparities in cardiovascular disease mortality?Social science & medicine (1982) · 2026Article
- Spatial Social Polarization and Cardiometabolic Disease Prevalence and Incidence: What Is the Role of the Neighborhood Environment?Journal of health and social behavior · 2026Article
- Methodological Design Choices Can Affect Air Pollution Exposure Disparity Estimates: A Case Study on California's Agricultural Sector.Environmental science & technology · 2026Article
- P.A.D.D.L.E.: a hypothesis generation tool for assessing pollution's potential role in disease.Scientific reports · 2026Article
- Is memory in older adulthood influenced by changes in air pollution over the previous decade?: Examining concurrent trajectories in ambient PMEnvironmental epidemiology (Philadelphia, Pa.) · 2026Article
- Article
- Air Pollution and Cardiac Remodeling and Function in Patients With Breast Cancer.JAMA network open · 2026Article
- The effect of the "exposome" on developmental brain health and cognitive outcomes.Neuropsychopharmacology : official publication of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology · 2026Review
- Air pollution exposure among people with limitations in activities of daily living in the United States.medRxiv : the preprint server for health sciences · 2025Article
- Local environmental attributes and type 2 diabetes: Green amenities, walkability indicators, and air pollution are associated with incidence.Environment international · 2025Article
- Defining "Overburdened Communities" in State Level Legislation Using Cumulative Impacts Frameworks to Inform Environmental Decision-Making: Implications for Environmental and Health Justice.Environmental justice (Print) · 2025Article
- Racial and ethnic disparities in exposure to short-term NOJournal of hazardous materials · 2025Article
34 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
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Authors and funding
6 authors.
Funding
Abstract
National-scale empirical models for air pollution can include hundreds of geographic variables. The impact of model parsimony (i.e., how model performance differs for a large versus small number of covariates) has not been systematically explored. We aim to (1) build annual-average integrated empirical geographic (IEG) regression models for the contiguous U.S. for six criteria pollutants during 1979-2015; (2) explore systematically the impact on model performance of the number of variables selected for inclusion in a model; and (3) provide publicly available model predictions. We compute annual-average concentrations from regulatory monitoring data for PM10, PM2.5, NO2, SO2, CO, and ozone at all monitoring sites for 1979-2015. We also use ~350 geographic characteristics at each location including measures of traffic, land use, land cover, and satellite-based estimates of air pollution. We then develop IEG models, employing universal kriging and summary factors estimated by partial least squares (PLS) of geographic variables. For all pollutants and years, we compare three approaches for choosing variables to include in the PLS model: (1) no variables, (2) a limited number of variables selected from the full set by forward selection, and (3) all variables. We evaluate model performance using 10-fold cross-validation (CV) using conventional and spatially-clustered test data. Models using 3 to 30 variables selected from the full set generally have the best performance across all pollutants and years (median R2 conventional [clustered] CV: 0.66 [0.47]) compared to models with no (0.37 [0]) or all variables (0.64 [0.27]). Concentration estimates for all Census Blocks reveal generally decreasing concentrations over several decades with local heterogeneity. Our findings suggest that national prediction models can be built by empirically selecting only a small number of important variables to provide robust concentration estimates. Model estimates are freely available online.
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