Causality test of ambient fine particles and human influenza in Taiwan: Age group-specific disparity and geographic heterogeneity

Ambient atmospheric PM worsens mouse lung injury induced by influenza A virus through lysosomal dysfunction

BACKGROUND

Particulate matter (PM) air pollution poses a significant risk to respiratory health and is especially linked with various infectious respiratory diseases such as influenza. Our previous studies have shown that H5N1 virus infection could induce alveolar epithelial A549 cell death by enhancing lysosomal dysfunction. This study aims to investigate the mechanisms underlying the effects of PM on influenza virus infections, with a particular focus on lysosomal dysfunction.

RESULTS

Here, we showed that PM nanoparticles such as silica and alumina could induce A549 cell death and lysosomal dysfunction, and degradation of lysosomal-associated membrane proteins (LAMPs), which are the most abundant lysosomal membrane proteins. The knockdown of LAMPs with siRNA facilitated cellular entry of both H1N1 and H5N1 influenza viruses. Furthermore, we demonstrated that silica and alumina synergistically increased alveolar epithelial cell death induced by H1N1 and H5N1 influenza viruses by enhancing lysosomal dysfunction via LAMP degradation and promoting viral entry. In vivo, lung injury in the H5N1 virus infection-induced model was exacerbated by pre-exposure to silica, resulting in an increase in the wet/dry ratio and histopathological score.

CONCLUSIONS

Our findings reveal the mechanism underlying the synergistic effect of nanoparticles in the early stage of the influenza virus life cycle and may explain the increased number of respiratory patients during periods of air pollution.

A Systematic Review of INGARCH Models for Integer-Valued Time Series

Count time series are widely available in fields such as epidemiology, finance, meteorology, and sports, and thus there is a growing demand for both methodological and application-oriented research on such data. This paper reviews recent developments in integer-valued generalized autoregressive conditional heteroscedasticity (INGARCH) models over the past five years, focusing on data types including unbounded non-negative counts, bounded non-negative counts, Z-valued time series and multivariate counts. For each type of data, our review follows the three main lines of model innovation, methodological development, and expansion of application areas. We attempt to summarize the recent methodological developments of INGARCH models for each data type for the integration of the whole INGARCH modeling field and suggest some potential research topics.

Community-level ambient fine particulate matter and seasonal influenza among children in Guangzhou, China: A Bayesian spatiotemporal analysis

BACKGROUND

Influenza is a major preventable infectious respiratory disease. However, there is little detailed long-term evidence of its associations with PM_2.5 among children. We examined the community-level associations between exposure to ambient PM_2.5 and incident influenza in Guangzhou, China.

METHODS

We used data from the city-wide influenza surveillance system collected by Guangzhou Centre for Disease Control and Prevention (GZCDC) over the period 2013 and 2019. Incident influenza was defined as daily new influenza (both clinically diagnosed and laboratory confirmed) cases as per standard diagnostic criteria. A 200-meter city-wide grid of daily ambient PM_2.5 exposure was generated using a random forest model. We developed spatiotemporal Bayesian hierarchical models to examine the community-level associations between PM_2.5 and the influenza adjusting for meteorological and socioeconomic variables and accounting for spatial autocorrelation. We also calculated community-wide influenza cases attributable to PM_2.5 levels exceeding the China Grade 1 and World Health Organization (WHO) regulatory thresholds.

RESULTS

Our study comprised N = 191,846 children from Guangzhou aged ≤19 years and diagnosed with influenza between January 1, 2013 and December 31, 2019. Each 10 μg/m³ increment in community-level PM_2.5 measured on the day of case confirmation (lag 0) and over a 6-day moving average (lag 0-5 days) was associated with higher risks of influenza (RR = 1.05, 95% CI: 1.05-1.06 for lag 0 and RR = 1.15, 95% CI: 1.14-1.16 for lag 05). We estimated that 8.10% (95%CI: 7.23%-8.57%) and 20.11% (95%CI: 17.64%-21.48%) influenza cases respectively were attributable to daily PM_2.5 exposure exceeding the China Grade I (35 μg/m³) and the WHO limits (25 μg/m³). The risks associated with PM_2.5 exposures were more pronounced among children of the age-group 10-14 compared to other age groups.

CONCLUSIONS

More targeted non-pharmaceutical interventions aimed at reducing PM_2.5 exposures at home, school and during commutes among children may constitute additional influenza prevention and control polices.

SARS-CoV-2 and other airborne respiratory viruses in outdoor aerosols in three Swiss cities before and during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic

Caused by the SARS-CoV-2 virus, Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has been affecting the world since the end of 2019. While virus-laden particles have been commonly detected and studied in the aerosol samples from indoor healthcare settings, studies are scarce on air surveillance of the virus in outdoor non-healthcare environments, including the correlations between SARS-CoV-2 and other respiratory viruses, between viruses and environmental factors, and between viruses and human behavior changes due to the public health measures against COVID-19. Therefore, in this study, we collected airborne particulate matter (PM) samples from November 2019 to April 2020 in Bern, Lugano, and Zurich. Among 14 detected viruses, influenza A, HCoV-NL63, HCoV-HKU1, and HCoV-229E were abundant in air. SARS-CoV-2 and enterovirus were moderately common, while the remaining viruses occurred only in low concentrations. SARS-CoV-2 was detected in PM10 (PM below 10 µm) samples of Bern and Zurich, and PM2.5 (PM below 2.5 µm) samples of Bern which exhibited a concentration positively correlated with the local COVID-19 case number. The concentration was also correlated with the concentration of enterovirus which raised the concern of coinfection. The estimated COVID-19 infection risks of an hour exposure at these two sites were generally low but still cannot be neglected. Our study demonstrated the potential functionality of outdoor air surveillance of airborne respiratory viruses, especially at transportation hubs and traffic arteries.

Airborne magnetic nanoparticles may contribute to COVID-19 outbreak: Relationships in Greece and Iran

This work attempts to shed light on whether the COVID-19 pandemic rides on airborne pollution. In particular, a two-city study provides evidence that PM_2.5 contributes to the timing and severity of the epidemic, without adjustment for confounders. The publicly available data of deaths between March and October 2020, updated it on May 30, 2021, and the average seasonal concentrations of PM_2.5 pollution over the previous years in Thessaloniki, the second-largest city of Greece, were investigated. It was found that changes in coronavirus-related deaths follow changes in air pollution and that the correlation between the two data sets is maximized at the lag time of one month. Similar data from Tehran were gathered for comparison. The results of this study underscore that it is possible, if not likely, that pollution nanoparticles are related to COVID-19 fatalities (Granger causality, p < 0.05), contributing to the understanding of the environmental impact on pandemics.

The Prediction of Influenza-like Illness and Respiratory Disease Using LSTM and ARIMA

This paper proposed the forecasting model of Influenza-like Illness (ILI) and respiratory disease. The dataset was extracted from the Taiwan Environmental Protection Administration (EPA) for air pollutants data and the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) for disease cases from 2009 to 2018. First, this paper applied the ARIMA method, which trained based on the weekly number of disease cases in time series. Second, we implemented the Long short-term memory (LSTM) method, which trained based on the correlation between the weekly number of diseases and air pollutants. The models were also trained and evaluated based on five and ten years of historical data. Autoregressive integrated moving average (ARIMA) has an excellent model in the five-year dataset of ILI at 2564.9 compared to ten years at 8173.6 of RMSE value. This accuracy is similar to the Respiratory dataset, which gets 15,656.7 in the five-year dataset and 22,680.4 of RMSE value in the ten-year dataset. On the contrary, LSTM has better accuracy in the ten-year dataset than the five-year dataset. For example, on average of RMSE in the ILI dataset, LSTM has 720.2 RMSE value in five years and 517.0 in ten years dataset. Also, in the Respiratory disease dataset, LSTM gets 4768.6 of five years of data and 3254.3 of the ten-year dataset. These experiments revealed that the LSTM model generally outperforms ARIMA by three to seven times higher model performance.

Modeling air quality level with a flexible categorical autoregression

To study urban air quality, this paper proposes a novel categorical time series model, which is based on a linear combination of bounded Poisson distribution and discrete distribution to describe the dynamic and systemic features of air quality, respectively. Daily air quality level data of three major cities in China, including Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou, are analyzed. It is concluded that the air quality in Beijing is the worst among the three cities but is gradually improving, and its dynamics is also the most pronounced. Theoretically, the design of our model increases the flexibility of the probabilistic structure while ensuring a dynamic feedback mechanism without high computational stress. We estimate the parameters through an adaptive Bayesian Markov chain Monte Carlo sampling scheme and show the satisfactory finite sample performance of the model through simulation studies.

Association between ozone exposure and prevalence of mumps: a time-series study in a Megacity of Southwest China

In the present study, we aim to evaluate the delayed and cumulative effect of ozone (O₃) exposure on mumps in a megacity with high population density and high humidity. We took Chongqing, a megacity in Southwest China, as the research area and 2013-2017 as the research period. A total of 49,258 confirmed mumps cases were collected from 122 hospitals of Chongqing. We employed the distributed lag nonlinear models with quasi-Poisson link to investigate the relationship between prevalence of mumps and O₃ exposure after adjusting for the effects of meteorological conditions. The results show that the effect of O₃ exposure on mumps was mainly manifested in the lag of 0-7 days. The single-day ;lag effect was the most obvious on the 4th day, with the relative risk (RR) of mumps occurs of 1.006 (95% CI: 1.003-1.007) per 10 μg/m³ in the O₃ exposure. The cumulative RR within 7 days was 1.025 (95% CI: 1.013-1.038). Our results suggest that O₃ exposure can increase the risk of mumps infection, which fills the gap of relevant research in mountainous areas with high population density and high humidity.

Ordinal Time Series Forecasting of the Air Quality Index

This research models and forecasts daily AQI (air quality index) levels in 16 cities/counties of Taiwan, examines their AQI level forecast performance via a rolling window approach over a one-year validation period, including multi-level forecast classification, and measures the forecast accuracy rates. We employ statistical modeling and machine learning with three weather covariates of daily accumulated precipitation, temperature, and wind direction and also include seasonal dummy variables. The study utilizes four models to forecast air quality levels: (1) an autoregressive model with exogenous variables and GARCH (generalized autoregressive conditional heteroskedasticity) errors; (2) an autoregressive multinomial logistic regression; (3) multi-class classification by support vector machine (SVM); (4) neural network autoregression with exogenous variable (NNARX). These models relate to lag-1 AQI values and the previous day’s weather covariates (precipitation and temperature), while wind direction serves as an hour-lag effect based on the idea of nowcasting. The results demonstrate that autoregressive multinomial logistic regression and the SVM method are the best choices for AQI-level predictions regarding the high average and low variation accuracy rates.

Pandemic meets pollution: Poor air quality increases deaths by COVID-19

We study the impact of short-term exposure to ambient air pollution on the spread and severity of COVID-19 in Germany. We combine data at the county-by-day level on confirmed cases and deaths with information on local air quality and weather conditions. Following Deryugina et al. (2019), we instrument short-term variation in local concentrations of particulate matter (PM10) by region-specific daily variation in wind directions. We find significant positive effects of PM10 concentration on death numbers from four days before to ten days after the onset of symptoms. Specifically, for elderly patients (80+ years) an increase in ambient PM10 concentration by one standard deviation between two and four days after developing symptoms increases the number of deaths by 19 percent of a standard deviation. In addition, higher levels air pollution raise the number of confirmed cases of COVID-19 for all age groups. The timing of effects surrounding the onset of illness suggests that air pollution affects the severity of already-realized infections. We discuss the implications of our results for immediate policy levers to reduce the exposure and level of ambient air pollution, as well as for cost-benefit considerations of policies aiming at sustainable longer-term reductions of pollution levels.

Short-term effects of ambient air pollution on the incidence of influenza in Wuhan, China: A time-series analysis

BACKGROUND

Evidence suggests that air pollution is associated with many adverse health outcomes such as cardiovascular diseases (CVD), respiratory diseases, cancer, and birth defects. Yet few studies dig into the relationship between air pollution and airborne infectious diseases.

METHODS

Daily data on influenza incidence were obtained from Hubei Provincial Center for Disease Control and Prevention (Hubei CDC). Data on air pollutants including nitrogen dioxide (NO₂), sulfur dioxide (SO₂), ground-level ozone (O₃), particulate matter (PM) with aerodynamic diameter ≤ 2.5 μm (PM_2.5), and PM with aerodynamic diameter ≤ 10 μm (PM₁₀) were retrieved from ten national air sampling stations located at Wuhan. We applied generalized additive model (GAM) to estimate the associations between air pollution and the risk of influenza in Wuhan, China during 2015-2017.

RESULTS

In the single-day lag model, the largest effect estimates were observed at lag 0. An increased relative risk (RR) of influenza was significantly associated with a 10 μg/m³ increase in SO₂ (RR: 1.099; 95% confidence interval [CI]: 1.011-1.195), NO₂ (RR: 1.039; 95% CI: 1.013-1.065), and O₃ (RR: 1.005; 95% CI: 0.994-1.016), respectively. In the multi-day lag model, concentrations of SO₂, NO₂, and O₃ were statistically significantly associated with the risk of influenza at lag 0-1. The seasonal analysis suggests that the influence of air pollution on influenza is greater in the cold season as compared in the warm season in the early lag days. The multi-pollutant model indicates that NO₂ may be a potential confounder for co-pollutants.

CONCLUSIONS

Our study shows that air pollution may be associated with the risk of influenza in a broad sense. Therefore, when formulating policies to deal with influenza outbreaks in the future, factors regarding air pollution should be taken into consideration.

Associations between air pollution and COVID-19 epidemic during quarantine period in China

The coronavirus disease (COVID-19) has become a global public health threaten. A series of strict prevention and control measures were implemented in China, contributing to the improvement of air quality. In this study, we described the trend of air pollutant concentrations and the incidence of COVID-19 during the epidemic and applied generalized additive models (GAMs) to assess the association between short-term exposure to air pollution and daily confirmed cases of COVID-19 in 235 Chinese cities. Disease progression based on both onset and report dates as well as control measures as potential confounding were considered in the analyses. We found that stringent prevention and control measures intending to mitigate the spread of COVID-19, contributed to a significant decline in the concentrations of air pollutants except ozone (O3). Significant positive associations of short-term exposure to air pollutants, including particulate matter with diameters ≤2.5 μm (PM2.5), particulate matter with diameters ≤10 μm (PM10), and nitrogen dioxide (NO2) with daily new confirmed cases were observed during the epidemic. Per interquartile range (IQR) increase in PM2.5 (lag0-15), PM10 (lag0-15), and NO2 (lag0-20) were associated with a 7% [95% confidence interval (CI): (4-9)], 6% [95% CI: (3-8)], and 19% [95% CI: (13-24)] increase in the counts of daily onset cases, respectively. Our results suggest that there is a statistically significant association between ambient air pollution and the spread of COVID-19. Thus, the quarantine measures can not only cut off the transmission of virus, but also retard the spread by improving ambient air quality, which might provide implications for the prevention and control of COVID-19.

The role of influenza vaccination in mitigating the adverse impact of ambient air pollution on lung function in children: New insights from the Seven Northeastern Cities Study in China

BACKGROUND

Ambient air pollution exposure and influenza virus infection have been documented to be independently associated with reduced lung function previously. Influenza vaccination plays an important role in protecting against influenza-induced severe diseases. However, no study to date has focused on whether influenza vaccination may modify the associations between ambient air pollution exposure and lung function.

METHODS

We undertook a cross-sectional study of 6740 children aged 7-14 years into Seven Northeast Cities (SNEC) Study in China during 2012-2013. We collected information from parents/guardians about sociodemographic factors and influenza vaccination status in the past three years. Lung function was measured using portable electronic spirometers. Machine learning methods were used to predict 4-year average ambient air pollutant exposures to nitrogen dioxide (NO₂) and particulate matter with an aerodynamic diameter <1 μm (PM₁), <2.5 μm (PM_2.5) and <10 μm (PM₁₀). Two-level linear and logistic regression models were used to assess interactions between influenza vaccination and long-term ambient air pollutants exposure on lung function reduction, controlling for potential confounding factors.

RESULTS

Ambient air pollution were observed significantly associated with reductions in lung function among children. We found significant interactions between influenza vaccination and air pollutants on lung function, suggesting greater vulnerability to air pollution among unvaccinated children. For example, an interaction (p_interaction = 0.002) indicated a -283.44 mL (95% CI: -327.04, -239.83) reduction in forced vital capacity (FVC) per interquartile range (IQR) increase in PM₁ concentrations among unvaccinated children, compared with the -108.24 mL (95%CI: -174.88, -41.60) reduction in FVC observed among vaccinated children. Results from logistic regression models also showed stronger associations between per IQR increase in PM₁ and lung function reduction measured by FVC and peak expiratory flow (PEF) among unvaccinated children than the according ORs among vaccinated children [i.e., Odds Ratio (OR) for PM₁ and impaired FVC: 2.33 (95%CI: 1.79, 3.03) vs 1.65 (95%CI: 1.20, 2.28); OR for PM_2.5 and impaired PEF: 1.45 (95%CI: 1.12,1.87) vs 1.04 (95%CI: 0.76,1.43)]. The heterogeneity of the modification by influenza vaccination of the associations between air pollution exposure and lung function reduction appeared to be more substantial in girls than in boys.

CONCLUSION

Our results suggest that influenza vaccination may moderate the detrimental effects of ambient air pollution on lung function among children. This study provides new insights into the possible co-benefits of strengthening and promoting global influenza vaccination programs among children.

Effects of air pollutants on the transmission and severity of respiratory viral infections

Particulate matter, sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxides, ozone, carbon monoxide, volatile organic compounds (VOCs) and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) are among the outdoor air pollutants that are major factors in diseases, causing especially adverse respiratory effects in humans. On the other hand, the role of respiratory viruses in the pathogenesis of severe respiratory infections is an issue of great importance. The present literature review was aimed at assessing the potential effects of air pollutants on the transmission and severity of respiratory viral infections. We have reviewed the scientific literature regarding the association of outdoor air pollution and respiratory viruses on respiratory diseases. Evidence supports a clear association between air concentrations of some pollutants and human respiratory viruses interacting to adversely affect the respiratory system. Given the undoubted importance and topicality of the subject, we have paid special attention to the association between air pollutants and the transmission and severity of the effects caused by the coronavirus named SARS-CoV-2, which causes the COVID-19. Although to date, and by obvious reasons, the number of studies on this issue are still scarce, most results indicate that chronic exposure to air pollutants delays/complicates recovery of patients of COVID-19 and leads to more severe and lethal forms of this disease. This deserves immediate and in-depth experimental investigations.

Benefits of influenza vaccination on the associations between ambient air pollution and allergic respiratory diseases in children and adolescents: New insights from the Seven Northeastern Cities study in China

BACKGROUND

Little information exists on interaction effects between air pollution and influenza vaccination on allergic respiratory diseases. We conducted a large population-based study to evaluate the interaction effects between influenza vaccination and long-term exposure to ambient air pollution on allergic respiratory diseases in children and adolescents.

METHODS

A cross-sectional study was investigated during 2012-2013 in 94 schools from Seven Northeastern Cities (SNEC) in China. Questionnaires surveys were obtained from 56 137 children and adolescents aged 2-17 years. Influenza vaccination was defined as receipt of the influenza vaccine. We estimated air pollutants exposure [nitrogen dioxide (NO₂) and particulate matter with aerodynamic diameters ≤1 μm (PM₁), ≤2.5 μm (PM_2.5) and ≤10 μm (PM₁₀)] using machine learning methods. We employed two-level generalized linear mix effects model to examine interactive effects between influenza vaccination and air pollution exposure on allergic respiratory diseases (asthma, asthma-related symptoms and allergic rhinitis), after controlling for important covariates.

RESULTS

We found statistically significant interactions between influenza vaccination and air pollutants on allergic respiratory diseases and related symptoms (doctor-diagnosed asthma, current wheeze, wheeze, persistent phlegm and allergic rhinitis). The adjusted ORs for doctor-diagnosed asthma, current wheeze and allergic rhinitis among the unvaccinated group per interquartile range (IQR) increase in PM₁ and PM_2.5 were significantly higher than the corresponding ORs among the vaccinated group [For PM₁, doctor-diagnosed asthma: OR: 1.89 (95%CI: 1.57-2.27) vs 1.65 (95%CI: 1.36-2.00); current wheeze: OR: 1.50 (95%CI: 1.22-1.85) vs 1.10 (95%CI: 0.89-1.37); allergic rhinitis: OR: 1.38 (95%CI: 1.15-1.66) vs 1.21 (95%CI: 1.00-1.46). For PM_2.5, doctor-diagnosed asthma: OR: 1.81 (95%CI: 1.52-2.14) vs 1.57 (95%CI: 1.32-1.88); current wheeze: OR: 1.46 (95%CI: 1.21-1.76) vs 1.11 (95%CI: 0.91-1.35); allergic rhinitis: OR: 1.35 (95%CI: 1.14-1.60) vs 1.19 (95%CI: 1.00-1.42)]. The similar patterns were observed for wheeze and persistent phlegm. The corresponding p values for interactions were less than 0.05, respectively. We assessed the risks of PM₁-related and PM_2.5-related current wheeze were decreased by 26.67% (95%CI: 1.04%-45.66%) and 23.97% (95%CI: 0.21%-42.08%) respectively, which was attributable to influenza vaccination (both p for efficiency <0.05).

CONCLUSIONS

Influenza vaccination may play an important role in mitigating the detrimental effects of long-term exposure to ambient air pollution on childhood allergic respiratory diseases. Policy targeted at increasing influenza vaccination may yield co-benefits in terms of reduced allergic respiratory diseases.

Effects of temperature, humidity, and diurnal temperature range on influenza incidence in a temperate region

Background

The effect of temperature and humidity on the incidence of influenza may differ by climate region. In addition, the effect of diurnal temperature range on influenza incidence is unclear, according to previous study findings.

Objectives

The aim of this study was to analyze the effects of temperature, humidity, and diurnal temperature range on the incidence of influenza in Seoul, Republic of Korea, which is located in a temperate region.

Methods

We used Korean National Health insurance data to assess the weekly influenza incidence between 2010 and 2016, and used meteorological data from Seoul. To investigate the effect of temperature, relative humidity, and diurnal temperature range levels on influenza incidence, we used a distributed lag non‐linear model.

Results

The risk of influenza incidence was significantly increased with low daily temperatures of 0‐5°C and low (30%–40%) or high (70%) relative humidity. We found a positive significant association between diurnal temperature range and influenza incidence in this study.

Conclusions

Influenza incidence increased with low temperature and low/high humidity in a temperate region. Influenza incidence also increased with high diurnal temperature range, after considering temperature and humidity.

The association between short-term exposure to ambient air pollution and the incidence of mumps in Wuhan, China: A time-series study

BACKGROUND

Previous studies have estimated the association between meteorological factors and mumps outbreaks without assessing the influence of air pollution. In this research, we explored the effects of short-term exposure to air pollution on the incidence of mumps.

METHODS

Our time-series analysis was conducted using data collected in Wuhan, China from 2015 to 2017. Daily number of mumps cases was obtained from Disease Reporting System in Hubei Provincial Center for Disease Control and Prevention. Data on air pollution was obtained from 10 national air quality monitoring stations, including nitrogen dioxide (NO₂), sulfur dioxide (SO₂), ground-level ozone (O₃), particulate matter less than or equal to 10 μm in aerodynamic diameter (PM₁₀), and particulate matter less than or equal to 2.5 μm in aerodynamic diameter (PM_2.5). Daily meteorological data including temperature and relative humidity were obtained from Hubei Meteorological Bureau. We performed a Poisson regression in generalized additive models (GAM) to explore the association between the incidence of mumps and exposure to air pollution.

RESULTS

We observed that the effects of air pollutants were statistically significant mainly in two periods, lag 0 to lag 5 and lag 20 to lag 25, with the strongest effects appearing at lag 2 and lag 23. The cumulative effects were stronger than single-day lag effects. The stratified analysis showed the effect of pollutants during the hot season was stronger than that during the cold season, especially for NO₂ and SO₂.

CONCLUSIONS

We found that exposure to NO₂ and SO₂ was significantly associated with higher risk of developing mumps. Our findings could help deepen the understanding of how air pollution exposure affects the incidence of mumps.

Causal Modeling in Environmental Health

The field of environmental health has been dominated by modeling associations, especially by regressing an observed outcome on a linear or nonlinear function of observed covariates. Readers interested in advances in policies for improving environmental health are, however, expecting to be informed about health effects resulting from, or more explicitly caused by, environmental exposures. The quantification of health impacts resulting from the removal of environmental exposures involves causal statements. Therefore, when possible, causal inference frameworks should be considered for analyzing the effects of environmental exposures on health outcomes.

Modernizing the Bradford Hill criteria for assessing causal relationships in observational data

Perhaps no other topic in risk analysis is more difficult, more controversial, or more important to risk management policy analysts and decision-makers than how to draw valid, correctly qualified causal conclusions from observational data. Statistical methods can readily quantify associations between observed variables using measures such as relative risk (RR) ratios, odds ratios (OR), slope coefficients for exposure or treatment variables in regression models, and quantities derived from these measures. Textbooks of epidemiology explain how to calculate population attributable fractions, attributable risks, burden-of-disease estimates, and probabilities of causation from relative risk (RR) ratios. Despite their suggestive names, these association-based measures have no necessary connection to causation if the associations on which they are based arise from bias, confounding, p-hacking, coincident historical trends, or other noncausal sources. But policy analysts and decision makers need something more: trustworthy predictions - and, later, evaluations - of the changes in outcomes caused by changes in policy variables. This concept of manipulative causation differs from the more familiar concepts of associational and attributive causation most widely used in epidemiology. Drawing on modern literature on causal discovery and inference principles and algorithms for drawing limited but useful causal conclusions from observational data, we propose seven criteria for assessing consistency of data with a manipulative causal exposure-response relationship - mutual information, directed dependence, internal and external consistency, coherent causal explanation of biological plausibility, causal mediation confirmation, and refutation of non-causal explanations - and discuss to what extent it is now possible to automate discovery of manipulative causal dependencies and quantification of causal effects from observational data. We compare our proposed principles for causal discovery and inference to the traditional Bradford Hill considerations from 1965. Understanding how old and new principles are related can clarify and enrich both.