An empirical analysis of air pollution dose-response curves

The authors combine information from 2 million death certificates and 2 million observations from the Public Use Sample. With several strategies for controlling extraneous variation, the authors explore these data in order to measure the chronic effects of several air pollutants on white mortality rates. In the United States, approximately 140,000 deaths a year (Wo of all deaths) may be associated with air pollution. The size of this effect increases dramatically with age, with children displaying no detectable associations. Some pollutants, especially sulfate, are closely associated with many deaths, whereas other pollutants, especially ozone and nitrogen dioxide, have no apparent effect on expected lifetimes.