Understanding Critical Windows of Exposure in Longitudinal Analysis of Air Pollution and Cognitive Function

• Activity Number: 326 - Exploring the Impact of Air Pollution on Alzheimer's Disease and Other Indicators of Dementia
• Type: Topic Contributed
• Date/Time: Tuesday, August 9, 2022 : 2:00 PM to 3:50 PM
• Sponsor: Section on Statistics in Epidemiology
• Author(s): Xiaohui Xu and Eric Whitsel and Qi Ying and Richard Smith and James Stewart and Eun Sug Park and Erin Bennett and Katie Lynch and Melinda Power and Vixey Fang and Xiaohui Xu*
• Companies: Texas A&M University and University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and Texas A&M University and University of North Carolina Chapel Hill and University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and TTI and George Washington University and George Washington University and George Washington University and Texas A&M University and Texas A&M University
• Keywords: Air pollution; Exposure Window; Cognitive decline; ARIC; Structural equation models; Longitudinal data

Abstract

Current research suggests adverse health effects of PM2.5 exposure on cognitive decline and dementia-related outcomes. However, the critical windows of exposure related to air pollution exposure remain unclear. We evaluate various longitudinal relationships between air pollution exposures and cognitive decline in the Atherosclerosis Risk in Communities (ARIC) cohort. Specifically, we evaluated the immediate effects of air pollution exposures over one year prior to each cognitive assessment using a time-varying effect model (TVEM) (estimate= -0.01, 95% CI = [-0.01, -0.16] for Digital Symbol Substitution), long-lasting health effects of air pollution exposure over one year prior to visit 2 on all subsequent cognitive assessments using multilevel structural equation models (SEQ) (p-value < 0.001), and cumulative and combined health effects of air pollution exposures in all defined time intervals on cognitive function using a distributed lag, non-linear model (DLNM) (Lag = 30 days). The findings of this research can assist in defining the underlying mechanisms of exposure windows and developing effective interventions in mitigating adverse health effects of the environmental exposures.