ArticleEnvironmental epidemiology (Philadelphia, Pa.)2022
Ecological studies of COVID-19 and air pollution: How useful are they?
Article in Environmental epidemiology (Philadelphia, Pa.), 2022. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 5 papers.
What it found
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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.
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Who cites it
5 citing papers in PubMed.
- Article
- Air Pollution in Relation to COVID-19 Morbidity and Mortality: A Large Population-Based Cohort Study in Catalonia, Spain (COVAIR-CAT).Research report (Health Effects Institute) · 2024Article
- Good and bad get together: Inactivation of SARS-CoV-2 in particulate matter pollution from different fuels.The Science of the total environment · 2022Article
- Proximity to livestock farms and COVID-19 in the Netherlands, 2020-2021.International journal of hygiene and environmental health · 2022Article
- Association of Short-term Air Pollution Exposure With SARS-CoV-2 Infection Among Young Adults in Sweden.JAMA network open · 2022Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
2 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundResults from ecological studies have suggested that air pollution increases the risk of developing and dying from COVID-19. Drawing causal inferences from the measures of association reported in ecological studies is fraught with challenges given biases arising from an outcome whose ascertainment is incomplete, varies by region, time, and across sociodemographic characteristics, and cannot account for clustering or within-area heterogeneity. Through a series of analyses, we illustrate the dangers of using ecological studies to assess whether ambient air pollution increases the risk of dying from, or transmitting, COVID-19.
methodsWe performed an ecological analysis in the continental United States using county-level ambient concentrations of fine particulate matter (PM
resultsOur analyses revealed that the shape of the exposure-response curve between PM
conclusionsOur analyses indicated that ecological analyses are prone to showing spurious relationships between ambient air pollution and mortality from COVID-19 as well as the prevalence of HIV. We discuss the many potential biases inherent in any ecological-based analysis of air pollution and COVID-19.
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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.