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A longitudinal study of mortality and air pollution for São Paulo, Brazil

Journal of Exposure Science & Environmental Epidemiology volume 12, pages 335–343 (2002)Cite this article

Abstract

We study the effects of various air-pollution variables on the daily death counts for people over 65 years in São Paulo, Brazil, from 1991 to 1993, controlling for meteorological variables. We use a state space model where the air-pollution variables enter via the latent process, and the meteorological variables via the observation equation. The latent process represents the potential mortality due to air pollution, and is estimated by Kalman filter techniques. The effect of air pollution on mortality is found to be a function of the variation in the sulphur dioxide level for the previous 3 days, whereas the other air-pollution variables (total suspended particulates, nitrogen dioxide, carbon monoxide, ozone) are not significant when sulphur dioxide is in the equation. There are significant effects of humidity and up to lag 3 of temperature, and a significant seasonal variation.

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Acknowledgements

We are grateful to Paulo Hilario N. Saldiva for providing the data, and to Rinaldo Artes, Reneé Menezes, Werner Vach and two anonymous referees for comments on a previous version of the paper. This work was partially supported by grants from CNPq, FAPESP and FINEP, Brazil.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Statistics, University of São Paulo, São, Paulo, Brazil

    DENISE A BOTTER

  2. Department of Statistics and Demography, University of Southern Denmark, Odense, Denmark

    BENT JØRGENSEN

  3. Department of Mathematics and Statistics, University of Rio de Janeiro, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

    ANTONIETA A Q PERES

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  1. DENISE A BOTTER
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  2. BENT JØRGENSEN
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  3. ANTONIETA A Q PERES
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Correspondence to BENT JØRGENSEN.

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BOTTER, D., JØRGENSEN, B. & PERES, A. A longitudinal study of mortality and air pollution for São Paulo, Brazil. J Expo Sci Environ Epidemiol 12, 335–343 (2002). https://doi.org/10.1038/sj.jea.7500234

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