Risk assessment of circulatory disease excess mortality due to short-term atmospheric PM_2.5 exposure in Nanchang, China, 2016-2020

Objective To investigate the risk of circulatory disease excess mortality due to short-term atmospheric PM_2.5 exposure in Nanchang, China, from 2016 to 2020.

Methods The data of air pollutants, meteorological factors and cause-of-death in Nanchang from 2016 to 2020 were collected. The generalized additive model of Poisson distribution was performed to analyze the influence of PM_2.5 on excess mortality due to circulatory diseases.

Results During 2016-2020, the mean annual mass concentration of PM_2.5 in Nanchang was 37.68 μg/m³, and there were 50 664 deaths in total due to circulatory diseases. There were 707 circulatory disease excess deaths caused by short-term PM_2.5 pollution in the whole population, accounting for 1.40% of total circulatory disease deaths, and for every 10 μg/m³ increase of PM_2.5 mass concentration, the risk of excess mortality for those of male, female and aged ≥ 65 years was increased by 1.11% (95% CI: 0.30%, 1.92%), 1.64% (95% CI: 0.79%, 2.49%), and 1.36% (95% CI: 0.66%, 2.07%), respectively.

Conclusion The increase of mass concentration of PM_2.5 in Nanchang may increase the risk of circulatory disease mortality in the population of male, female and aged ≥ 65 years.