Résumé :
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[BDSP. Notice produite par INIST R0x6q58m. Diffusion soumise à autorisation]. Background. The relationship between air pollution and mortality in East Berlin was examined for the winters of 1981-1989. Methods. Regression analysis included daily mean levels of sulphur dioxide (SO2) and suspended particulates (SP), and was controlled for temperature, humidity, week-day, month, and year. Moving averages of previous pollution were also used. Results. Each pollutant was a significant contributor to excess mortality. The strongest association was found for mortality lagged for 2 days, which depended significantly on the level of SP (bêta for In SP=0.876 ; P=0.008) and SO2 (bêta for In SO2=0.635 ; P=0.012), when regressed separately. When omitting days with pollutant concentrations above 150 mug m-3, the pollutant-mortality relationship was linear, and a 100 mug m-3 increase was associated with a 6.1% (SP) and 4.5% (SO2) mortality increase 2 days later, when pollutants were considered separately ; this was reduced to 4.6% (SP) and 2.8% (SO2) increase, when both were considered simultaneously. Conclusions. The results show that short-term associations between air pollutants and mortality in East Berlin did exist during the winters 1981-1989. Since the coefficients for SP and SO2 dropped when controlling for the other pollutant species, a similar strength of association with mortality for both pollutants was found.
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