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American Journal of Epidemiology Advance Access published online on January 27, 2008
American Journal of Epidemiology, doi:10.1093/aje/kwm359
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American Journal of Epidemiology © 2008 The Authors
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/2.0/uk/) which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Original Contribution

Long-term Exposure to Ambient Particulate Matter and Prevalence of Subclinical Atherosclerosis in the Multi-Ethnic Study of Atherosclerosis

Ana V. Diez Roux1, Amy H. Auchincloss1, Tracy Green Franklin1, Trivellore Raghunathan2, R. Graham Barr3, Joel Kaufman4, Brad Astor5 and Jerry Keeler6

1 Department of Epidemiology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI
2 Department of Biostatistics, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI
3 Division of General Medicine, Columbia University, New York, NY
4 Department of Environmental and Occupational Health Sciences, University of Washington, Seattle, WA
5 Department of Epidemiology, Bloomberg School of Public Health, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD
6 Department of Environmental Health Sciences, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI

Correspondence to Dr. Ana V. Diez Roux, 1214 South University, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI 48104 (e-mail: adiezrou{at}umich.edu).

Received for publication August 20, 2007. Accepted for publication November 8, 2007.

Exposure to airborne particulate matter has been linked to cardiovascular events. Whether this finding reflects an effect of particulate matter exposure on the triggering of events or development of atherosclerosis remains unknown. Using data from the Multi-Ethnic Study of Atherosclerosis collected at baseline (2000–2002), the authors investigated associations of 20-year exposures to particulate matter with measures of subclinical disease (coronary calcium, common carotid intimal-medial thickness, and ankle-brachial index) in 5,172 US adults without clinical cardiovascular disease. Particulate matter exposures for the 20 years prior to assessment of subclinical disease were obtained from a space-time model of Environmental Protection Agency monitor data linked to residential history data for each participant. Intimal-medial thickness was weakly, positively associated with exposures to particulate matter <10 µm in aerodynamic diameter and <2.5 µm in aerodynamic diameter after controlling for age, sex, race/ethnicity, socioeconomic factors, diet, smoking, physical activity, blood lipids, diabetes, hypertension, and body mass index (1–4% increase per 21-µg/m3 increase in particulate matter <10 µm in aerodynamic diameter or a 12.5-µg/m3 increase in particulate matter <2.5 µm in aerodynamic diameter). No consistent associations with other measures of atherosclerosis were observed. There was no evidence of effect modification by sociodemographic factors, lipid status, smoking, diabetes, body mass index, or site. Results are compatible with some effect of particulate matter exposures on development of carotid atherosclerosis.

atherosclerosis; cardiovascular diseases; carotid artery diseases; environmental exposure; particulate matter

Abbreviations: ABI, ankle-brachial index; CIMT, common carotid intimal-medial thickness; MESA, Multi-Ethnic Study of Atherosclerosis; PM2.5, particulate matter <2.5 µm in aerodynamic diameter; PM10, particulate matter <10 µm in aerodynamic diameter


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