ArticleThorax2020
Non-communicable respiratory disease and air pollution exposure in Malawi: a prospective cohort study.
Article in Thorax, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 23 papers, 3 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
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.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
23 citing papers in PubMed, 3 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.
- Comparing human exposure to fine particulate matter in low and high-income countries: A systematic review of studies measuring personal PMThe Science of the total environment · 2022Pooled it
- Ambient air pollution and non-communicable respiratory illness in sub-Saharan Africa: a systematic review of the literature.Environmental health : a global access science source · 2022Pooled it
- Ambient gaseous pollutants and emergency ambulance calls for all-cause and cause-specific diseases in China: a multicity time-series study.Environmental science and pollution research international · 2022Pooled it
- Trial
- Lung function across the life course in Kenya: a series of cross-sectional surveys.ERJ open research · 2026Article
- Preserved Ratio Impaired Spirometry in Low- and Middle-Income Countries: An Emerging Cardiopulmonary Phenotype and Cardiovascular Risk-A Narrative Review.Life (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Review
- Personal PM2.5 exposure and lung function among adults with and without HIV who have recovered from pneumonia in Kampala, Uganda.Annals of the American Thoracic Society · 2026Article
- Small Airway Disease in Pre-COPD and Early COPD: Insights Into the Pulmonary "Silent Zone".International journal of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease · 2026Review
- Association of a cleaner-burning stove with blood pressure in adults in rural Malawi.PloS one · 2025Article
- Household Air Pollution Interventions to Improve Health in Low- and Middle-Income Countries: An Official American Thoracic Society Research Statement.American journal of respiratory and critical care medicine · 2024Article
- Understanding the Risk Factors, Burden, and Interventions for Chronic Respiratory Diseases in Low- and Middle-Income Countries: A Scoping Review.Public health reviews · 2024Article
- Factors associated with self-reported diagnosed asthma in urban and rural Malawi: Observations from a population-based study of non-communicable diseases.PLOS global public health · 2024Article
- Prevalence and Associated Factors of Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease Among Adults in Neno District, Malawi: A Cross-Sectional Analytical Study.International journal of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease · 2024Article
- Burden and risk factors of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease in Sub-Saharan African countries, 1990-2019: a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of disease study 2019.EClinicalMedicine · 2023Article
- Article
- COVID-19, the environment and animal life in Malawi compared to other countries: A brief scooping review for a research agenda in the developing countries.Physics and chemistry of the earth (2002) · 2022Article
- Household air pollution and COPD: cause and effect or confounding by other aspects of poverty?The international journal of tuberculosis and lung disease : the official journal of the International Union against Tuberculosis and Lung Disease · 2022Review
- Long-Term PMInternational journal of environmental research and public health · 2022Article
- Personal exposures to fine particulate matter and carbon monoxide in relation to cooking activities in rural Malawi.Wellcome open research · 2022Article
- Changing lung function and associated health-related quality-of-life: A five-year cohort study of Malawian adults.EClinicalMedicine · 2021Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
12 authors.
Funding
Abstract
rationaleThere are no population-based studies from sub-Saharan Africa describing longitudinal lung function in adults.
objectivesTo explore the lung function trajectories and their determinants, including the effects of air pollution exposures and the cleaner-burning biomass-fuelled cookstove intervention of the Cooking and Pneumonia Study (CAPS), in adults living in rural Malawi.
methodsWe assessed respiratory symptoms and exposures, spirometry and measured 48-hour personal exposure to fine particulate matter (PM MEASUREMENTS AND MAIN
resultsWe recruited 1481 adults, mean (SD) age 43.8 (17.8) years, including 523 participants from CAPS households (271 intervention; 252 controls), and collected multiple spirometry and air pollution measurements for 654 (44%) and 929 (63%), respectively. Compared with Global Lung Function Initiative African-American reference ranges, mean (SD) FEV
conclusionsWe did not observe accelerated lung function decline in this cohort of Malawian adults, compared with that reported in healthy, non-smoking populations from high-income countries; this suggests that the lung function deficits we measured in adulthood may have origins in early life.
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