Category: Parkinson's Disease: Pathophysiology
Objective: We aimed to investigate the association between air pollution, including fine particulate matter (particles 2.5 mm in diameter, or PM2.5), and the risk of Parkinson’s disease (PD).
Background: Several epidemiologic studies investigated the effect of exposure to air pollution on the risk of PD. However, the results were heterogenous between studies, and most of the studies were conducted in western countries. Therefore, long-term effect of air pollution on the risk of PD is needed to be further investigated.
Method: We identified 78,708 adults aged over 40 years, free of PD, and who lived in Seoul metropolitan city on 2002 to 2006 from the National Health Insurance Service -National Sample Cohort version 2.0 of Korea. Individuals were followed up until 31 December 2015 with 1,075,496 total person-years of follow-up. We assessed annual exposures to PM2.5 from Time-dependent Cox proportional hazards model. We analyzed annual mean PM2.5 concentration for 25 districts from Air quality information of Seoul Metropolitan Government. We applied time-dependent Cox proportional hazards models, adjusting for age, sex and health insurance type. The annual mean PM2.5 was used as the time-dependent variables.
Results: During the study period, we identified 332 newly diagnosed cases of PD. Each 10-μg/m3 increment in cumulative average PM2.5 exposure was not associated with PD (HR = 0.904; 95% CI = 0.599-1.370), after adjusting for age, sex, and health insurance type. Risk of PD was not significantly different between participants in the top quartile group (PM2.5: 31.0-55.0μg/m3) and participants in the lowest quartile group (PM2.5: 16.0-24.0μg/m3). Older age was associated with PD (HR = 1.108; 95% CI = 1.100-1.115). Study population in the Medicaid group had increased risk of PD, compared to those in the health insurance group (HR = 2.466; 95% CI = 1.570-3.875).
Conclusion: In this study, there was no association between long-term PM2.5 exposure and the risk of PD. Age and social economic status were associated with the risk of PD.
To cite this abstract in AMA style:
Y.S Hwang, S.Y Jo, Y.J Kim, K.W Park, S.H Lee, S.J Chung. Long-term effects of air pollution on the risk of Parkinson’s disease [abstract]. Mov Disord. 2020; 35 (suppl 1). https://www.mdsabstracts.org/abstract/long-term-effects-of-air-pollution-on-the-risk-of-parkinsons-disease/. Accessed July 1, 2025.« Back to MDS Virtual Congress 2020
MDS Abstracts - https://www.mdsabstracts.org/abstract/long-term-effects-of-air-pollution-on-the-risk-of-parkinsons-disease/