Evidence map›Paper›PMID 39550493›Full record

SynthesisJournal of exposure science & environmental epidemiology2025

Assessment of long-term exposure to traffic-related air pollution: An exposure framework.

Allison P Patton, Hanna Boogaard, Danielle Vienneau, Jeffrey R Brook, Audrey Smargiassi, Meltem Kutlar Joss, Adam A Szpiro, Sharon K Sagiv, Evangelia Samoli, Barbara Hoffmann and 6 more

Abstract readSystematic Review
PubMed Publisher
In one paragraph

Synthesis in Journal of exposure science & environmental epidemiology, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 5 papers.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
5citing papers in PubMed
–field-weighted citation impact
1 · What the graph read from 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.

2 · The registry

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.

3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

5 citing papers in PubMed.

  1. Article
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4 · The record

Corrections and comments

PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.

5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

16 authors.

Allison P PattonHealth Effects Institute, Boston, MA, USA. apatton@healtheffects.org.
Hanna BoogaardHealth Effects Institute, Boston, MA, USA.
Danielle VienneauSwiss Tropical and Public Health Institute, Allschwil, Switzerland.
Jeffrey R BrookDalla Lana School of Public Health and Dept. of Civil and Mineral Engineering, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada.
Audrey SmargiassiDepartment of Environmental and Occupational Health, School of Public Health, University of Montreal, Montreal, QC, Canada.
Meltem Kutlar JossSwiss Tropical and Public Health Institute, Allschwil, Switzerland.
Adam A SzpiroDepartment of Biostatistics, University of Washington, Seattle, WA, USA.
Sharon K SagivCenter for Environmental Research and Children's Health, Division of Epidemiology, University of California Berkeley School of Public Health, Berkeley, CA, USA.
Evangelia SamoliDepartment of Hygiene, Epidemiology and Medical Statistics, School of Medicine, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Athens, Greece.
Barbara HoffmannInstitute for Occupational, Social and Environmental Medicine, Centre for Health and Society, Medical Faculty, University of Düsseldorf, Düsseldorf, Germany.
Howard H ChangDepartment of Biostatistics and Bioinformatics, Rollins School of Public Health, Emory University, Atlanta, GA, USA.
Richard W AtkinsonPopulation Health Research Institute, St. George's University of London, London, UK.
Jennifer WeuveDepartment of Epidemiology, Boston University School of Public Health, Boston, MA, USA.
Francesco ForastiereEnvironmental Health Group, School of Public Health, Imperial College, London, UK.
Fred W LurmannSonoma Technology, Inc, Petaluma, CA, USA.
Gerard HoekInstitute for Risk Assessment Sciences, Environmental Epidemiology, Utrecht University, Utrecht, Netherlands.

Funding

No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.

6 · The paper itself

Abstract

backgroundExposure to ambient air pollution is associated with morbidity and mortality, making it an important public health concern. Emissions from motorized traffic are a common source of air pollution but evaluating the contribution of traffic-related air pollution (TRAP) emissions to health risks is challenging because it is difficult to disentangle the contribution of individual air pollution sources to exposure contrasts in an epidemiological study.

objectiveThis paper describes a new framework to identify whether air pollution differences reflect contrasts in TRAP exposures. Because no commonly measured pollutant is entirely specific to on-road motor vehicles, this exposure framework combined information on pollutants, spatial scale (i.e., geographic extent), and exposure assessment methods and their spatial scale to determine whether the estimated effect of air pollution in a given study was related to differences in TRAP.

methodsThe exposure framework extended beyond the near-road environment to include differences in exposure to TRAP at neighborhood resolution ( ≤ 5 km) across urban, regional, and national scales. It also embedded a stricter set of criteria to identify studies that provided the strongest evidence that exposure contrasts were related to differences in traffic emissions.

resultsApplication of the framework to the transparent selection of epidemiological studies for a systematic review produced insights on assessing and improving comparability of TRAP exposure measures, particularly for indirect measures such as distances from roads. It also highlighted study design challenges related to the duration of measurements and the structure of epidemiological models. IMPACT STATEMENT: This manuscript describes a new exposure framework to identify studies of traffic-related air pollution, a case study of its application in an HEI systematic review, and its implications for exposure science and air pollution epidemiology experts. It identifies challenges and provides recommendations for the field going forward. It is important to bring this information to the attention of researchers in air pollution exposure science and epidemiology because applying the broader lessons learned will improve the conduct and reporting of studies going forward.

Indexed as

Air PollutantsAir PollutionEnvironmental ExposureTraffic-Related PollutionVehicle EmissionsEnvironmental MonitoringHumansParticulate MatterAir PollutantsParticulate MatterVehicle Emissions

Identifiers

PMID39550493

What OpenQuestion holds

Textmetadata
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Registered trials

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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.