Identifying Subgroups of the General Population That May Be Susceptible to Short-Term Increases in Particulate Air Pollution: A Time-Series Study in Montreal, Quebec

Dr. Mark Goldberg and his colleagues at McGill University conducted a time-series study in Montreal using available data from the Quebec Health Insurance Plan and mortality and air pollution data to better the understanding of the mortality-particulate association. Because of the comprehensive nature of this health insurance database, the investigators were able to link individual deaths in Montreal to medical information up to 5 years before death. The investigators had two major objectives: (1) to determine whether concentrations of particles in the ambient air of Montreal were associated with daily all-cause and cause-specific mortality and (2) to determine whether groups of the population had higher than average risks of death from exposure to particles.