Short-term Ozone Exposure and Its Impact on Mortality Risk from Circulatory System Diseases: A Comparative Analysis Based on Multi-source Data.

Abstract

Objective: Ozone pollution significantly impacts public health; however, inconsistent exposure assessment data introduce uncertainty to health risk evaluations. The accurate assessment of health risks and disease burden is essential to protecting public health and formulating effective control strategies.

Methods: This study used a generalized linear model to compare health risks and disease burdens assessed using three ozone datasets (CNEMC, TAP, and USTC) based on circulatory system disease mortality data from 199 Chinese counties (2014-2018).

Results: The impact of ozone exposure on the risk of death from circulatory system diseases was most significant at lag03. In the CNEMC dataset, a 10 μg/m ³ increase in O ₃-MAD8 was associated with a 0.14% (95% CI: 0.01%-0.26%) increase in the risk of death. In contrast, the risk estimates for TAP and USTC were 0.26% (95% CI: 0.10%-0.42%) and 0.23% (95% CI: 0.09%-0.37%), respectively, indicating a difference of up to 46%. The estimated annual attributable deaths by TAP and USTC were 1.96 and 1.85 times higher than those in the CNEMC dataset, respectively.

Conclusion: Ozone exposure was associated with increased circulatory system disease mortality. Both risk estimates and attributable mortality burdens varied substantially across different datasets, thus highlighting that exposure data selection can materially influence health risk evaluation.