Increasing mortality caused by chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) in relation with exposure to ambient fine particulate matters: an analysis in Southeastern China

The objective of this study was to investigate the association between ambient particulate matters (PMs) and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) mortality. generalized additive mixed model was employed to investigate the effects of ambient fine and coarse PMs on COPD mortality using 13,066 deaths from 2014 to 2016 among six cities in Zhejiang Province in Southeastern China. The daily average death count due to COPD was 3, varying from 1 to 7 among six cities. The daily 24-h mean concentrations were diverse among cities, from 29.7 to 56.8 μg/m3 for PM2.5, 16.7 to 30.3 μg/m3 for PM2.5-10, and 50.3 to 87.1 μg/m3 for PM10, respectively. The analysis showed that daily exposure to PM2.5 and PM10 was associated with increased mortality due to COPD and that weak effects were observed between PM2.5-10 and COPD mortality. Our results provided solid evidence that the fine particles in air pollution have stronger functions on adverse health effects other than coarser particles in Southeastern China, which may be considered as a potential clinic target in PM-associated COPD.