Ambient air pollution and depressive symptoms

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1 Population Studies Division, Health Canada, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
2 Department of Emergency Medicine and School of Public Health, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada
DOI
10.7287/peerj.preprints.757v1
Published
Accepted
Subject Areas
Epidemiology
Keywords
air pollution, depression, exposure, age
Copyright
© 2014 Szyszkowicz et al.
Licence
This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, reproduction and adaptation in any medium and for any purpose provided that it is properly attributed. For attribution, the original author(s), title, publication source (PeerJ PrePrints) and either DOI or URL of the article must be cited.
Cite this article
Szyszkowicz M, Rowe BH. 2014. Ambient air pollution and depressive symptoms. PeerJ PrePrints 2:e757v1

Abstract

Background. Depression is among the most common mental health problems. Depression interferes with daily functioning and quality of life. Many factors can contribute to depression and air pollution can initiate or intensify symptoms of depression.

Methods. Case-crossover method was used to study associations between emergency department (ED) visits for depression and ambient air pollution. The statistical analysis was applied for patients of different ages.

Results. Positive and statistically significant results, (communicated as odds ratios), were obtained for exposure to ambient carbon monoxide and ED visits for depression.

Discussion. The presented results support the hypothesis that recent exposures to ambient levels of air pollutants can contribute clinically significant worsening in depression symptoms leading to ED visits. As the results suggest the associations are age dependent.

Author Comment

In the paper we present the results related to ambient air pollution (CO) exposure and depression.