Air pollution and mortality in East Berlin during the winters of 1981-1989.

BACKGROUND

The relationship between air pollution and mortality in East Berlin was examined for the winters of 1981-1989.

METHODS

Regression analysis included daily mean levels of sulphur dioxide (SO2) and suspended particulates (SP), and was controlled for temperature, humidity, week-day, month, and year. Moving averages of previous pollution were also used.

RESULTS

Each pollutant was a significant contributor to excess mortality. The strongest association was found for mortality lagged for 2 days, which depended significantly on the level of SP (beta for in SP = 0.876; P = 0.008) and SO2 (beta for in SO2 = 0.635; P = 0.012), when regressed separately. When omitting days with pollutant concentrations above 150 micrograms m-3, the pollutant-mortality relationship was linear, and a 100 micrograms m-3 increase was associated with a 6.1% (SP) and 4.5% (SO2) mortality increase 2 days later, when pollutants were considered separately; this was reduced to 4.6% (SP) and 2.8% (SO2) increase, when both were considered simultaneously.

CONCLUSIONS

The results show that short-term associations between air pollutants and mortality in East Berlin did exist during the winters 1981-1989. Since the coefficients for SP and SO2 dropped when controlling for the other pollutant species, a similar strength of association with mortality for both pollutants was found.