1. Home
  2. Issues
  3. Volume 19, Issue 3 (2021)
  4. Investigating the Relationship Between A ...

Journal of Data Science


Investigating the Relationship Between Air Quality and COVID-19 Transmission✩
Volume 19, Issue 3 (2021), pp. 485–497
Pub. online: 23 March 2021      Type: Data Science In Action     

✩ Version information: This is an updated version from the one released in April 2021. The update corrected the unit of PM 2.5 to AQI in Figures 3–4 and a few places involving it in the text.
† All authors contributed equally to this work.
Received
29 December 2020
Accepted
26 February 2021
Published
23 March 2021

Abstract

It is hypothesized that short-term exposure to air pollution may influence the transmission of aerosolized pathogens such as COVID-19. We used data from 23 provinces in Italy to build a generalized additive model to investigate the association between the effective reproductive number of the disease and air quality while controlling for ambient environmental variables and changes in human mobility. The model finds that there is a positive, nonlinear relationship between the density of particulate matter in the air and COVID-19 transmission, which is in alignment with similar studies on other respiratory illnesses.

Supplementary material

 Supplementary Material
The data and R code used to generate these results, as well as figures for individual cities in the validation process, are included in the supplementary files. A README is provided to describe the data available, how to generate each figure presented in the paper, and where important variables should be found in the code.

References

 
Brandt EB, Beck AF, Mersha TB (2020). Air pollution, racial disparitiesm and COVID-19 mortality. Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology, 146(1): 61–63.
 
Carslaw D (2020). Worldmet: Import Surface Meteorological Data from NOAA Integrated Surface Database (ISD). R package version 0.9.0.
 
Ciencewicki J, Jaspers I (2007). Air pollution and respiratory viral infection. Inhalation Toxicology, 19(14): 1135–1146.
 
Colon-Gonzalez FJ, Fezzi C, Lake IR, Hunter PR (2013). The effects of weather and climate change on dengue. PLoS Neglected Tropical Diseases, 7: e2503.
 
Contini D, Costabile F (2020). Does air pollution influence COVID-19 outbreaks? Atmosphere, 11(4): 377.
 
Delfino RJ, Sioutas C, Malik S (2005). Potential role of ultrafine particles in associations between airborne particle mass and cardiovascular health. Environmental Health Perspectives, 113(8): 934–946.
 
Donaldson K, Tran CL (2002). Inflammation caused by particles and fibers. Inhalation Toxicology, 14: 5–27.
 
Feng C, Li J, Sun W, Zhang Y, Wang Q (2016). Impact of ambient fine particulate matter (PM 2.5) exposure on the risk of influenza-like-illness: a time-series analysis in Beijing, China. Environmental Health, 15(1): 17.
 
Fronza R, Lusic M, Schmidt M, Lucic B (2020). Spatial–temporal variations in atmospheric factors contribute to SARS-CoV-2 outbreak. Viruses, 12(6): 588.
 
Gelman A, Hill J (2007). Data Analysis Using Regression and Multilevel/Hierarchical Models, Volume Analytical Methods for Social Research. Cambridge University Press, New York.
 
Hooper MW, Nápoles AM, Pérez-Stable EJ (2020). COVID-19 and racial/ethnic disparities. JAMA, 323(24): 2466–2467.
 
Jaffe D, Hafner W, Chand D, Westerling A, Spracklen D (2008). Interannual variations in PM2.5 due to wildfires in the western United States. Environmental Science & Technology, 42(8): 2812–2818.
 
Janssen N, Fischer P, Marra M, Ameling C, Cassee F (2013). Short-term effects of PM2. 5, PM10 and PM2.5–10 on daily mortality in the Netherlands. Science of the Total Environment, 463: 20–26.
 
Jiang Y, Wu XJ, Guan YJ (2020). Effect of ambient air pollutants and meteorological variables on COVID-19 incidence. Infection Control and Hospital Epidemiology, 41(9): 1011–1015.
 
Kim CS, Kang TC (1995). Comparative measurement of lung deposition of inhaled fine particles in normal subjects and patients with obstructive airway disease. American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine, 155: 899–905.
 
Kraemer MU, Yang CH, Gutierrez B, Wu CH, Klein B, Pigott DM, et al. (2020). The effect of human mobility and control measures on the COVID-19 epidemic in China. Science, 368: 493–497.
 
Krewski D (2009). Evaluating the effects of ambient air pollution on life expectancy. The New England Journal of Medicine, 360(4): 413–415.
 
Laden F, Neas LM, Dockery DW, Schwartz J (2000). Association of fine particulate matter from different sources with daily mortality in six US cities. Environmental Health Perspectives, 108(10): 941–947.
 
Lauer SA, Grantz KH, Bi Q, Jones FK, Zheng Q, Meridith HR, et al. (2020). The incubation period of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) from publicly reported confirmed cases: Estimation and application. Annals of Internal Medicine, 172(9): 577–582.
 
Lee GI, Saravia J, You D, Shrestha B, Jaligama S, Hebert VY, et al. (2014). Exposure to combustion generated environmentally persistent free radicals enhances severity of influenza virus infection. Particle and Fibre Toxicology, 11: 11–57.
 
Lee GI, Saravia J, You D, Shrestha B, Jaligama S, Hebert VY, et al. (2020). Effects of temperature and humidity on the daily new cases and new deaths of COVID-19 in 166 countries. Science of the Total Environment, 729: 139051.
 
Lelieveld J, Evans JS, Fnais M, Giannadaki D, Pozzer A (2015). The contribution of outdoor air pollution sources to premature mortality on a global scale. Nature, 525(7569): 367–371.
 
Li XY, Gilmour PS, Donaldson K, MacNee W (1996). Free radical activity and pro-inflammatory effects of particulate air pollution (PM10) in vivo and in vitro. Thorax, 51: 1216–1222.
 
Liang Y, Fang L, Pan H, Zhang K, Kan H, Brook JR, et al. (2014). PM 2.5 incBeijing – temporal pattern and its association with influenza. Environmental Health, 13(1): 102.
 
Lipsitch M, Finelli L, Herrenan RT, Leung GM, Redd SC (2011). Improving the evidence base for decision making during a pandemic: The example of 2009 Influenza A/H1N1. Biosecurity and Bioterrorism: Biodefense Strategy, Practice, and Science, 9: 89–115.
 
Liu JC, Mickley LJ, Sulprizio MP, Dominici F, Yue X, Ebisu K, et al. (2016). Particulate air pollution from wildfires in the western US under climate change. Climatic Change, 138(3–4): 655–666.
 
Ma Y, Zhao Y, Liu J, He X, Wang B, Fu S, et al. (2020). Effects of temperature variation and humidity on the death of COVID-19 in Wuhan, China. Science of the Total Environment, 724: 138226.
 
Nishiura H, Linton NM, Akhmetzhanov AR (2020). Serial interval of novel coronavirus (COVID-19) infections. International Journal of Infectious Diseases, 93: 284–286.
 
O’Dell K, Ford B, Fischer EV, Pierce JR (2019). Contribution of wildland-fire smoke to US PM2.5 and its influence on recent trends. Environmental Science & Technology, 53(4): 1797–1804.
 
Pan A, Liu L, Wang C, Guo H, Hao X, Wang Q, et al. (2020). Association of public health interventions with the epidemiology of the COVID-19 outbreak in Wuhan, China. JAMA Network, 323: 1915–1923.
 
Peng RD, Dominici F, Louis TA (2005). Model choice in time series studies of air pollution and mortality. Journal of the Royal Statistical Society, 169: 179–203.
 
Prata DN, Rodrigues W, Bermejo PH (2020). Temperature significantly changes COVID-19 transmission in (sub)tropical cities of Brazil. Science of the Total Environment, 729: 138862.
 
Richardson S, Hirsch JS, Narasimhan M, Crawford JM, McGinn T, Davidson KW, et al. (2020). Presenting characteristics, comorbidities, and outcomes among 5700 patients hospitalized with COVID-19 in the New York City area. JAMA, 323(20): 2052–2059.
 
Rubin D, Huang J, Fisher BT, Gasparrini A, Tam V, Song L, et al. (2020). Association of social distancing, population density, and temperature with the instantaneous reproduction number of SARS-CoV-2 in counties across the United States. JAMA Network Open, 3: e2016099.
 
Schwartz J, Dockery DW, Neas LM (1996). Is daily mortality associated specifically with fine particles? Journal of the Air & Waste Management Association, 46(10): 927–939.
 
Setti L, Passarini F, De Gennaro G, Barbieri P, Perrone MG, Borelli M, et al. (2020). SARS-CoV-2RNA found on particulate matter of Bergamo in northern Italy: First evidence. Environmental Research, 188: 109754.
 
Shaddick G, Thomas M, Mudu P, Ruggeri G, Gumy S (2020). Half the world’s population are exposed to increasing air pollution. npj Climate and Atmospheric Science, 3(1): 1–5.
 
Simpson G (2021). Graceful ‘ggplot’-Based Graphics and Other Functions for GAMs Fitted Using ‘mgcv’. R package version 0.5.1.
 
Su W, Wu X, Geng X, Zhao X, Liu Q, Liu T (2019). The short-term effects of air pollutants on influenza-like illness in Jinan, China. BMC Public Health, 19(1): 1–12.
 
Systrom K, Vladek T, Krieger M (2020). Rt.live. GitHub repository.
 
Talmoudi K, Bellali H, Ben-Alaya N, Saez M, Malouche D, Chahed MK (2017). Modeling zoonotic cutaneous leishmaniasis incidence in central Tunisia from 2009–2015: Forecasting models using climate variables as predictors. PLoS Neglected Tropical Diseases, 11: e0005844.
 
Tessum CW, Apte JS, Goodkind AL, Muller NZ, Mullins KA, Paolella DA, et al. (2019). Inequality in consumption of goods and services adds to racial-ethnic disparities in air pollution exposure. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 116(13): 6001–6006.
 
Tucker WG (2000). An overview of PM2.5 sources and control strategies. Fuel Processing Technology, 65: 379–392.
 
Wood SN (2011). Fast stable restricted maximum likelihood and marginal likelihood estimation of semiparametric generalized linear models. Journal of the Royal Statistical Society, Series B, Statistical Methodology, 73(1): 3–36.
 
Xie J, Zhu Y (2020). Association between ambient temperature and COVID-19 infection in 122 cities from China. Science of the Total Environment, 724: 138201.
 
Xie Y, Lin M, Horowitz LW (2020). Summer PM2. 5 pollution extremes caused by wildfires over the western United States during 2017–2018. Geophysical Research Letters, 47(16): e2020GL089429.
 
Xing YF, Xu YH, Shi MH, Lian YX (2016). The impact of PM2. 5 on the human respiratory system. Journal of Thoracic Disease, 8(1): E69.
 
Xu B, Gutierrez B, Mekaru S, Sewalk K, Goodwin L, Loskill A, et al. (2020). Epidemiological data from the COVID-19 outbreak, real-time case information. Scientific Data, 7: 106.
 
Yancy CW (2020). COVID-19 and African Americans. JAMA, 323(19): 1891–1892.
 
Yang J, Zheng Y, Gou X, Pu K, Chen Z, Guo Q, et al. (2020). Prevalence of comorbidities and its effects in patients infected with SARS-CoV-2: a systematic review and meta-analysis. International Journal of Infectious Diseases, 94: 91–95.
 
Zhu N, Zhang D, Wang W, Li X, Yang B, Song J, et al. (2020a). A novel coronavirus from patients with pneumonia in China. The New England Journal of Medicine, 382: 727–733. 2019.
 
Zhu Y, Xie J, Huang F, Cao L (2020b). Association between short-term exposure to air pollution and COVID-19 infection: Evidence from China. Science of the Total Environment, 727: 138704.
 
Zhu Y, Xie J, Huang F, Cao L (2020c). The mediating effect of air quality on the association between human mobility and COVID-19 infection in China. Environmental Research, 189: 109911.

Related articles PDF XML
Related articles PDF XML

Copyright
© 2021 The Author(s)
This is a free to read article.

Keywords
air pollution effective reproduction number generalized additive model mobility particulate matter

Metrics
since February 2021
3324

Article info
views

915

PDF
downloads


Share


RSS