Air Pollution and Health Care Costs in Oakland, CA
Year: 2019
Type: conference-abstract
Abstract: Background: Air pollution is associated with multiple adverse health effects. In principle, the deleterious effects of air pollution should in turn be reflected in increased health costs. However, our understanding of air pollution’s full impact across the diversity of health outcomes is still limited. For example, recent advances have been made in understanding the relationship between air pollution and rare diseases, metabolic syndrome, neurodevelopment, dementia as well as severity of disease conditions. In this context, health care costs may be considered an additional useful metric of adverse health effects. Objective: We hypothesized that higher exposure to air pollution is associated with higher total health care cost in population in Oakland, CA served by Kaiser Permanente Northern California (KPNC), a large integrated health care system. Methods: Repeated mobile street-level mobile monitoring was used to measure pollutant concentrations for nitrogen dioxide [NO2], nitric oxide [NO], and black carbon [BC] at a resolution of 30 m road segments and linked to residential addresses of 41,869 adults living in Oakland during 2010 to 2016. Data on health care utilization and costs were derived from KPNC databases and were used to calculate individual annual total health care, inpatient, outpatient, and emergency room and pharmacy costs. We fit gamma linked generalized estimating equations models to estimate the relationship between air pollution exposures and annual health care costs, accounting for age, sex, race, BMI and smoking. Results: Among the elderly (>65 years old) a 1 SD change in pollutant concentration was associated with 7% [95% confidence interval (CI): 1%, 15%], 10% [95% CI: 3%, 17%] and 9% [95% CI: 2%, 16%] increase in total health care cost for BC, NO and NO2 respectively. Conclusions: Long term exposure to air pollution was associated with significantly higher total health care cost among the elderly in Oakland, CA.
Source: Environmental Epidemiology
Authors: van den Eeden S, Alexeeff S, Shan J, Sidney S, Ray G, Messier K, Apte J, Portier C, Roy A
Language: English
Subfield: Health, Toxicology and Mutagenesis
Field: Environmental Science
Domain: Physical Sciences
Open Access status: gold
Estimated APC paid: $1,200
OpenAlex ID: W2981485712