Epidemiologic Studies of Air Pollution

¹ Assistant Surgeon General, Chief, Bureau of State Services, Public Health Service, U. S. Department of Health, Education, and Welfare

Supplementing existing data which indicate an association betwen disease and air pollution, new epidemiologic studies provide evidence on the relationship of malignant neoplasms of the lung to air pollution, the distribution of deaths resulting from emphysema and the apparent increase in this disease, the relationship of asthmatic attack rates to air pollution as measured by sulphur dioxide, and the effects of air pollution exposure on pulmonary function in a normal population.

Since epidemiologic studies cannot provide "cause-and-effect" proof, the author postulates that they must be supplemented by laboratory and other studies to strengthen the evidence. In order to establish "proof" that air pollution adversely affects human health, one must have: (1) statistical endence that a certain disease condition exists in the population; (2) epidemiologic evidence of the association between this disease condition and a certain factor or factors present; (3) laboratory demonstration that such factors can prcduce a condition in experimental subjects similar to that found in the population; and (4) the ultimate demonstration that protection from such factors will lessen the amount or severity of the disease condition.