TY - JOUR
T1 - Ambient fine particulate matter and ozone higher than certain thresholds associated with myopia in the elderly aged 50 years and above
AU - Ruan, Zengliang
AU - Qian, Zhengmin (Min)
AU - Guo, Yanfei
AU - Zhou, Jin
AU - Yang, Yin
AU - Acharya, Bipin Kumar
AU - Guo, Shu
AU - Zheng, Yang
AU - Cummings-Vaughn, Lenise A.
AU - Rigdon, Steven E.
AU - Vaughn, Michael G.
AU - Chen, Xinyu
AU - Wu, Fan
AU - Lin, Hualiang
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2019 Elsevier Inc.
PY - 2019/10
Y1 - 2019/10
N2 - Although myopia has been largely ignored among the elderly population, there is an increased risk of myopia with advancing age. Ambient air pollution is one potential contributor to vision impairments, but few epidemiological studies have demonstrated such an association. This cross-sectional survey collected the information of 33,626 subjects aged ≥50 years in six developing countries during 2007–2010. Myopia was identified based on questions related to symptoms of myopia. The annual concentrations of fine particulate matter (PM2.5) and ozone (O3) were estimated with the satellite data and chemical transport model. We examined the associations between the two pollutants and myopia using mixed-effect Poisson regression models with robust variance estimation (sandwich estimation). We observed J-shaped associations between the two pollutants and myopia, and identified 12 and 54 μg/m3 as the threshold concentrations. The adjusted prevalence ratio was 1.12 (95% CI: 1.05, 1.21) and 1.26 (95% CI: 1.14, 1.38) for each standard deviation (SD) increase in PM2.5 and O3 concentrations above their threshold, respectively. In addition, the interaction analysis suggested a synergistic interaction of these two pollutants on myopia in the additive model, with a synergistic index of 1.81 (Bootstrapping 95% CI: 0.92, 4.94). Our results indicate that long-term exposures to PM2.5 and O3 might be important environmental risk factors of myopia in the elderly, and suggest that more efforts should be taken to reduce airborne PM2.5 and O3 levels to protect vision health.
AB - Although myopia has been largely ignored among the elderly population, there is an increased risk of myopia with advancing age. Ambient air pollution is one potential contributor to vision impairments, but few epidemiological studies have demonstrated such an association. This cross-sectional survey collected the information of 33,626 subjects aged ≥50 years in six developing countries during 2007–2010. Myopia was identified based on questions related to symptoms of myopia. The annual concentrations of fine particulate matter (PM2.5) and ozone (O3) were estimated with the satellite data and chemical transport model. We examined the associations between the two pollutants and myopia using mixed-effect Poisson regression models with robust variance estimation (sandwich estimation). We observed J-shaped associations between the two pollutants and myopia, and identified 12 and 54 μg/m3 as the threshold concentrations. The adjusted prevalence ratio was 1.12 (95% CI: 1.05, 1.21) and 1.26 (95% CI: 1.14, 1.38) for each standard deviation (SD) increase in PM2.5 and O3 concentrations above their threshold, respectively. In addition, the interaction analysis suggested a synergistic interaction of these two pollutants on myopia in the additive model, with a synergistic index of 1.81 (Bootstrapping 95% CI: 0.92, 4.94). Our results indicate that long-term exposures to PM2.5 and O3 might be important environmental risk factors of myopia in the elderly, and suggest that more efforts should be taken to reduce airborne PM2.5 and O3 levels to protect vision health.
KW - Air pollution
KW - Fine particulate matter
KW - Long-term
KW - Myopia
KW - Ozone
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85068935077&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1016/j.envres.2019.108581
DO - 10.1016/j.envres.2019.108581
M3 - Article
C2 - 31323395
AN - SCOPUS:85068935077
SN - 0013-9351
VL - 177
JO - Environmental Research
JF - Environmental Research
M1 - 108581
ER -