Air pollution and cardiorespiratory events in infants.

Previous research has indicated that increased ambient air pollution concentrations are associated with health effects, although relatively few studies have specifically examined infants. Peel et al. (p. 1321) studied associations of daily ambient air pollution concentrations with central apnea and bradycardia events among infants prescribed home cardiorespiratory monitors. The authors report associations between bradycardia and 8-hr maximum ozone and 1-hr maximum nitrogen dioxide. The association with ozone was robust to different methods of control for time trend and specified correlation structure. In secondary analyses, associations of apnea and bradycardia with pollution were generally stronger in infants who were full term and of normal birth weight than in infants who were both premature and low birth weight. These results suggest that higher air pollution concentrations may increase the occurrence of apnea and bradycardia in high-risk infants.

* Also see Science Selections, p. A398