New research published on Monday has found that air pollution may be the cause of nearly 188,000 dementia cases in the U.S. every year. The research also suggested that bad air quality from wildfires and agriculture had strong links to a person’s risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease later in life.
The new estimates were published in the journal JAMA Network Open and underscore the wide swath of health risks that are brought on by air pollution.
Previous studies have already examined the health impacts of bad air quality, but the new study offers a deeper analysis of how specific causes of air pollution appear to be more strongly linked to dementia than others.
The estimates published Monday were based on an analysis of data the National Institutes of Health collected during a survey that lasted for decades. The survey included follow-ups with thousands of older adults in the U.S. every two years as researchers examined their health.
Thanks to the NIH data, researchers have been able to look through and create detailed air quality models, which they use to estimate what different people across the country may have been exposed to and the level of risk they may have of developing certain diseases.
The scientists in the new research examined what they call PM 2.5 air pollution, a benchmark for very small particles, less than 2.5 micrometers wide, that humans can inhale. The particles are so small that they are only a fraction of the diameter of a piece of human hair.
Researchers shared that the types of particles they looked at can come from a variety of sources. According to the journal, the particles can come from vehicle exhausts, wildfire smoke, and more.
Sara Adar, an associate chair of epidemiology at the University of Michigan’s School of Public Health, was involved in the research and shared that through their model, they can see what factors affected people in certain areas.
“They model all sources at once. Coal-fired power plants, agriculture, wildfires, traffic, all these different emission sources, and then they turn off the source in the model one at a time. And then they can see the difference in what levels are there with the emissions sources, and what are there without them,” Adar said.
The health effects that can result from long exposure to the particles include coughing, shortness of breath, asthma, and increased risk of death from heart disease.
The researchers noted that their modeling found higher risk when adjusting for factors such as sex, race, ethnicity, educational status, and wealth.
Adar acknowledged those who lived in different places throughout their life and the different health implications they may have. But Adar also shared that the results of their model are not instantaneous, as diseases like dementia take time to appear.
“Dementia takes a long time to develop. It’s not something that might be, ‘Oh, you got a bad exposure last week, and now you have dementia.’ It’s more likely to build up over a lifetime,” Adar said.
The new findings could help drive targeted interventions to address the risk of dementia caused by environmental factors.
“Unlike many other common risk factors for dementia (eg, hypertension, stroke, and diabetes), exposures to air pollution can be modified at the population level, making it a prime target for large-scale prevention efforts,” the study’s authors wrote.
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