A rigorous statistical framework for estimating the long-term health effects of air pollution
Lead Research Organisation:
University of Glasgow
Department Name: School of Mathematics & Statistics
Abstract
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Organisations
Publications
Huang G
(2018)
Multivariate space-time modelling of multiple air pollutants and their health effects accounting for exposure uncertainty.
in Statistics in medicine
Huang G
(2015)
An integrated Bayesian model for estimating the long-term health effects of air pollution by fusing modelled and measured pollution data: A case study of nitrogen dioxide concentrations in Scotland.
in Spatial and spatio-temporal epidemiology
Lee D
(2017)
A rigorous statistical framework for spatio-temporal pollution prediction and estimation of its long-term impact on health.
in Biostatistics (Oxford, England)
Lee D
(2015)
Controlling for unmeasured confounding and spatial misalignment in long-term air pollution and health studies.
in Environmetrics
Lee D
(2018)
Spatio-Temporal Areal Unit Modeling in R with Conditional Autoregressive Priors Using the CARBayesST Package
in Journal of Statistical Software
Lee D
(2014)
Controlling for localised spatio-temporal autocorrelation in long-term air pollution and health studies.
in Statistical methods in medical research
Lee D
(2014)
A Bayesian localized conditional autoregressive model for estimating the health effects of air pollution.
in Biometrics
Lee D And Sahu S
(2016)
Handbook of Spatial Epidemiology
Pannullo F
(2016)
How robust are the estimated effects of air pollution on health? Accounting for model uncertainty using Bayesian model averaging.
in Spatial and spatio-temporal epidemiology
Pannullo F
(2017)
Quantifying the impact of current and future concentrations of air pollutants on respiratory disease risk in England.
in Environmental health : a global access science source
| Description | This project has developed novel statistical methodology for producing less biased estimates of the effects of air pollution on health using spatio-temporal areal unit data, and has provided freely available software for others to use to estimate these effects for their own data. Additionally, a number of UK based studies have been undertaken to quantify the health effects of different pollutants at different spatial scales in the UK, including Glasgow, London and the whole of England and Scotland. The key findings of the project are that: 1) The use of simple (naive) statistical models for estimating the long-term health effects of air pollution can result in biased estimates. Specifically, models that ignore or incorrectly represent the spatial structure in the disease data can result in biased estimates, as can models that ignore the inherent uncertainty in area averaged pollution concentrations. However as the estimated effect sizes are small, then ignoring the within area variation in pollution concentrations (known as ecological bias) does not in general lead to biased results. 2) The use of rigorous statistical models that account for the statistical issues highlighted above can remove these biases, leading to better estimation of the health effects of air pollution. 3) New software called CARBayesST has been developed for the statistical software R, which can fit the models developed in the project to allow others to estimate the effects of air pollution on human health for their own data. The software is freely available for all to use, and contains a vignette with a worked example, making it easy to use. 4) Air pollution remains a substantial problem in the UK, with all studies that have been conducted exhibiting a substantial relationship between pollution and respiratory health. These relationships have been observed using small area data for London, Glasgow and the whole of Scotland, while similar sized relationships have been observed for the whole of England in larger area studies. In the large area studies in England it was nitrogen dioxide that was estimated to have the greatest health impact, while for the small area studies both nitrogen dioxide and particulate matter exhibited consistent and substantial health effects. However, in all cases the health effects are relative small, in common with the rest of the literature, making their estimation slightly inconsistent between studies as to which pollutant has the strongest effect. However, the population at risk is large (everybody), hence the magnitude of the public health burden of air pollution is large. |
| Exploitation Route | 1) Researchers or policymakers interested in estimating the effects of air pollution on health can use our results and available software (CARBayesST) to better estimate the effects of air pollution on health for their own data. 2) We have published a series of areal unit studies (small and large areas) investigating the impact of air pollution on human health in the UK (London, Glasgow, England and Scotland), and have found repeated evidence of associations across nitrogen dioxide and particulate matter. These studies thus add to the evidence base about the pollution-health relationship in the UK, and can be used by bodies such as the Committee on the Medical Effects of Air Pollution (COMEAP) to inform future policy. |
| Sectors | Environment,Healthcare,Transport |
| URL | http://www.modelling-airpollutioneffects.org.uk |
| Description | The project has had the following impacts. Note, this is a joint project with grant EP/J017442/1, so other impacts can be found be viewing that grant as well. 1) The development of the statistical methodology in the project and its subsequent publication and presentation has alerted researchers to the biases that can arise from using simple and naive statistical models to estimate the effects of air pollution on health, and thus the need to use more advanced methodology. This need has been met by the development of the CARBayesST software to allow others to implement the methods used, and other researchers are now using this software for modelling their data. 2) The project organised and ran 3 workshops for policymakers and academics interested in air pollution and its health effects. These workshops were attended by participants from interested stakeholders such as the Scottish Environmental Protection Agency, Health Protection Scotland, Transport Scotland, Public Health England and Ricardo-AEA. Around 70 delegates attended the workshop in Glasgow, and it helped form new links between researchers in Scotland. One aspect of these new links is the new alliance, the Scottish Research Partnership for Air Pollution health effects (SHAPE, http://www.shape.scot), which I am a member of. This group provides a regular forum for discussing issues in this sphere and holding workshops to bring all stakeholders together. 3) We have published a series of areal unit studies (small and large areas) investigating the impact of air pollution on human health in the UK (London, Glasgow, England and Scotland), and have found repeated evidence of associations across nitrogen dioxide and particulate matter. These studies thus add to the evidence base about the pollution-health relationship in the UK, and can be used by bodies such as the Committee on the Medical Effects of Air Pollution (COMEAP) to inform future policy. 4) In 2018 / 19 my expertise in air pollution and health, partly driven by the project, has resulted in me being invited to serve on two governmental review committees. The first was set up by Health Scotland to assess how one could evaluate the impact of the new Low Emission Zone that has opened in Glasgow in January 2019. The second was set up by the Scottish Government to review the Cleaner Air for Scotland (CAFS) strategy, and I am on the environment and health sub-group of that review committee. Both these committees have submitted their reports, with for example the CAFS review being available at https://www.gov.scot/publications/cleaner-air-scotland-strategy-independent-review/pages/4/ and continues to impact on-going Scottish air pollution policy. 5) In March 2020 I was elected to join the UK government advisory Committee on the Medical Effects of Air Pollution (COMEAP), which was partly due to my expertise and international standing developed during this project. This role has given me the ability to influence air pollution policy, and I have been asked to work specifically on a report quantifying the nature and extent of the heterogeneity of air pollution pollution-health effects across different continents in the world. |
| Sector | Environment,Healthcare |
| Impact Types | Societal |
| Description | Invited by Health Scotland to be on the advisory committee they are running into evaluating if and how one can evaluate the new Low Emission Zone in Glasgow |
| Geographic Reach | Local/Municipal/Regional |
| Policy Influence Type | Participation in a guidance/advisory committee |
| Description | Invited by the Scottish Government to be on the committee evaluating the Cleaner Air for Scotland (CAFS) strategy, as part of the environment and health subgroup. |
| Geographic Reach | Local/Municipal/Regional |
| Policy Influence Type | Participation in a guidance/advisory committee |
| Description | CASE studentship competition |
| Amount | £58,000 (GBP) |
| Organisation | Natural Environment Research Council |
| Sector | Public |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Start | 10/2016 |
| End | 09/2019 |
| Description | Conference funding |
| Amount | £270 (GBP) |
| Organisation | American Statistical Association |
| Sector | Charity/Non Profit |
| Country | United States |
| Start | 08/2013 |
| End | 09/2013 |
| Description | EPSRC funded SECURE network feasibility case study on air pollution health effects |
| Amount | £15,000 (GBP) |
| Organisation | Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) |
| Sector | Public |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Start | 09/2017 |
| End | 12/2017 |
| Description | MSc by research student recruited to work on the project |
| Amount | £17,000 (GBP) |
| Organisation | Information Services Division (ISD) |
| Sector | Public |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Start | 10/2013 |
| End | 09/2014 |
| Description | PhD student recruited to work on the project |
| Amount | £51,000 (GBP) |
| Organisation | Chinese Scholarship Council |
| Sector | Charity/Non Profit |
| Country | China |
| Start | 09/2013 |
| End | 08/2016 |
| Description | SECURE network feasibility project |
| Amount | £25,000 (GBP) |
| Organisation | Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) |
| Sector | Public |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Start | 10/2015 |
| End | 04/2016 |
| Description | Solving Urban Challenges with Data - CRD |
| Amount | £510,243 (GBP) |
| Funding ID | 53019-393223 |
| Organisation | Innovate UK |
| Sector | Public |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Start | 11/2015 |
| End | 10/2017 |
| Description | Travel funding |
| Amount | £950 (GBP) |
| Organisation | University of Washington |
| Department | Statistical Methods for Atmospheric and Oceanic Science |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| Country | United States |
| Start | 11/2013 |
| End | 12/2013 |
| Title | CARBayesST |
| Description | The software is a package for the R programming language available from the CRAN website. It fits spatio-temporal Bayesian hierarchical models for spatial areal unit data using Markov Chain Monte Carlo simulation. |
| Type Of Technology | Software |
| Year Produced | 2014 |
| Open Source License? | Yes |
| Impact | This is a new piece of software so take up so far is limited. |
| URL | https://cran.r-project.org/web/packages/CARBayesST/index.html |
| Description | A talk at a two-day workshop on EPSRC environmental networks |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Regional |
| Primary Audience | Other audiences |
| Results and Impact | A talk to academics working in environmental statistics |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2018 |
| Description | A talk on a one-day workshop on air pollution hosted by the IOM in Edinburgh |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Local |
| Primary Audience | Policymakers/politicians |
| Results and Impact | Talk to policymakers on air pollution from Health Protection Scotland, Transport Scotland and Scottish Environmental Protection Agency. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2017 |
| Description | An invited seminar at the Medical University of South Carolina |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Other academic audiences (collaborators, peers etc.) |
| Results and Impact | Around 15 people attended this invited university seminar The session resulted in the academic community being more aware of the project. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2014 |
| Description | An invited seminar at the University of Southampton |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Other academic audiences (collaborators, peers etc.) |
| Results and Impact | Around 30 people attended this university seminar The session resulted in the academic community being more aware of the project. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2014 |
| Description | Contributed conference presentation at the GEOMED meeting |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Other academic audiences (collaborators, peers etc.) |
| Results and Impact | Around 60 people attended this contributed conference talk by Alastair Rushworth The session resulted in the academic community being more aware of the project. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2013 |
| Description | Invited conference presentation at the GEOMED meeting |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Other academic audiences (collaborators, peers etc.) |
| Results and Impact | Around 60 people attended this invited conference talk by Duncan Lee The session resulted in the academic community being more aware of the project. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2013 |
| Description | Invited conference presentation at the Joint Statistical Meeting |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Other academic audiences (collaborators, peers etc.) |
| Results and Impact | Around 40 people attended this invited conference presentation. The session resulted in the academic community being more aware of the project. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2013 |
| Description | Invited conference talk at the Joint Statistical Meeting |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Other academic audiences (collaborators, peers etc.) |
| Results and Impact | The conference sparked discussion about air pollution health effects and their estimation None |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2015 |
| Description | Invited seminar at Lancaster University |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Local |
| Primary Audience | Other academic audiences (collaborators, peers etc.) |
| Results and Impact | The seminar sparked a lively discussion afterwards about spatial modelling. None |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2015 |
| Description | Invited talk at a workshop in Pescara linked to the Stephi project September 2016 |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Other audiences |
| Results and Impact | Talk at a workshop linked to the Stephi project. Around 20 people attended and it sparked lively debate afterwards. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2016 |
| Description | Invited talk at the GEOMED conference |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Other academic audiences (collaborators, peers etc.) |
| Results and Impact | The conference sparked discussion about air pollution health effects and their estimation None |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2015 |
| Description | Invited talk at the Joint Statistical meeting in Chicago 2016 |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Other audiences |
| Results and Impact | Talk at the annual conference of the American Statistical Association. Between 50 and 100 people attended and it sparked lively debate afterwards. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2016 |
| Description | Invited talk at the Spatial Statistics conference |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Other academic audiences (collaborators, peers etc.) |
| Results and Impact | The conference sparked discussion about air pollution health effects and their estimation None |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2015 |
| Description | Invited talk at the TIES conference in Edinburgh in 2016 |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Other audiences |
| Results and Impact | Talk at the annual conference of the Environmetrics society. Around 40 people attended and it sparked lively debate afterwards. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2016 |
| Description | Opening grant workshop |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Type Of Presentation | keynote/invited speaker |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Policymakers/politicians |
| Results and Impact | The university of Southampton played host to the first workshop of the EPSRC funded project entitled "A rigorous statistical framework for estimating the long-term health effects of air pollution" (refs: EP/J017485/1 and EP/J017442/1), which is run jointly by Dr Sujit Sahu (University of Southampton) and Dr Duncan Lee (University of Glasgow). The workshop was held on 15th April 2013, and was supported by the Environmental Statistics Section of the Royal Statistical Society. The workshop attracted an audience of around 30 participants. The talks in the morning were from academics working in this area, and the first of these was given jointly by Dr Sahu and Dr Lee who introduced the goals of the project. The rest of the morning saw talks from Dr Catheryn Tonne about the health impact of traffic related air pollution, and Prof Alan Gelfand about the consequences of spatial modeling of such data The afternoon was dedicated to non-academic industry partners, and the talks were given by Dr Brian Miller (Institute of Occupational Medicine and on the Committee on the Medical Effects of Air Pollution) on health impact assessment, Dr Stuart Sneddon (Ricardo-AEA) on air quality monitoring, and Dr Paul Agnew (Met Office) on air quality modeling. The workshop made non-academic policymakers aware of the project. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2013 |
| Description | Organised session at the International Society for Bayesian Analysis conference |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Type Of Presentation | keynote/invited speaker |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Postgraduate students |
| Results and Impact | Around 30 people attended this organised conference session. The session resulted in the academic community being more aware of the project. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2014 |
| Description | Quantifying the impact of air pollution on health |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Type Of Presentation | keynote/invited speaker |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Policymakers/politicians |
| Results and Impact | The university of Glasgow played host to the second workshop of the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council funded project entitled "A rigorous statistical framework for estimating the long-term health effects of air pollution", which is run jointly by Prof Sujit Sahu (University of Southampton) and Dr Duncan Lee (University of Glasgow). The workshop was held on 12th September 2014, and was supported by the Environmental Statistics section and the Glasgow local group of the Royal Statistical Society. The workshop attracted an audience of around 65 participants from across industry, government and academia, and had stimulating debate throughout. The first half of the workshop contained talks about the project and its progress. The first was from Rachel McInnes from the UK Met Office, who discussed the Met Office air quality model and the use of it to predict air quality in the future. The second talk was from Sujit Sahu from the University of Southampton, who discussed how pollution concentrations could be predicted by using spatio-temporal statistical methodology and fusing monitoring and modelled pollution data. The final talk in the first half was from Duncan Lee from the University of Glasgow, who discussed the statistical problems encountered when estimating the health effects of air pollution and how those problems could be overcome. The second half of the workshop contained speakers with a range of air pollution and health interests, including Stefan Reis, from the Centre for Ecology and Hydrology. Stefan spoke about the integration of modelled and personal monitoring pollution data. The second talk was given jointly by Iain Beverland and Jonathan Gillespie from the University of Strathclyde, focusing on the cohort studies and land-use regression models to estimate air pollution exposure. The final talk was given by Colin Ramsay from Health Protection Scotland, who discussed the epidemiological issues and work on estimating the health impact of air pollution. The workshop engaged policymakers from Scotland in various government departments about the project, and has resulted in stronger ties between people working on air quality and health in Scotland. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2014 |
| Description | Seminar at the University of Bristol in October 2016 |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Local |
| Primary Audience | Other audiences |
| Results and Impact | Seminar for the statistics group at the University of Bristol |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2016 |
| Description | Seminar given at the Centre for Ecology and Hydrology |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Local |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | Seminar on new air pollution and health research given at a research organisation |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2017 |
| Description | Session at the Royal Statistical Society conference 2014 |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Type Of Presentation | keynote/invited speaker |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Postgraduate students |
| Results and Impact | About 35 people attended the organised session at the RSS conference in Sheffield in 2014. The session resulted in the academic community being more aware of the project. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2014 |
| Description | Talk at the 2nd EPSRC funded SECURE network |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Regional |
| Primary Audience | Policymakers/politicians |
| Results and Impact | The talk was given at the 2nd EPSRC funded SECURE network focusing on air pollution and its health impacts. The event was attended by policymakers and other academics, and resulted in discussions about further funding applications in this area. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2016 |
| Description | Talk at the GEOMED 2017 conference in Porto |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Other audiences |
| Results and Impact | A conference talk |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2017 |
| Description | Talk at the TIES 2017 conference in Bergamo |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Other audiences |
| Results and Impact | International conference talk |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2017 |
| Description | Talk for the Scottish Government |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Regional |
| Primary Audience | Policymakers/politicians |
| Results and Impact | Talk on the importance of statistical modelling and evidence based policy at the Scottish Government focusing on air pollution and health and measles susceptibility in Scotland. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2015 |
| Description | Two talks given to the Air Pollution and Health subgroup of the Scottish Health Protection Network |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Local |
| Primary Audience | Policymakers/politicians |
| Results and Impact | Talk on air pollution and health research in Scotland given to policymakers from various Scottish agencies. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2017,2018 |
| Description | Website for the project |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A magazine, newsletter or online publication |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Policymakers/politicians |
| Results and Impact | We created a website for the project at http://www.modelling-airpollutioneffects.org.uk Policymakers and academics and other interested parties have looked at it to gather information on the project. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2014 |
| URL | http://www.modelling-airpollutioneffects.org.uk |
| Description | Workshop in Southampton |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Policymakers/politicians |
| Results and Impact | The workshop resulted in a lot of discussion about air pollution and its estimated health impacts. This workshop resulted in better engagement and communication with non-academics interested in air pollution effects. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2015 |