Short-term association between ambient air pollution and cardio-respiratory mortality in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

Taísa Rodrigues Cortes; Ismael Henrique Silveira; Beatriz Fátima Alves de Oliveira; Michelle L. Bell; Washington Leite Junger

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0281499

Peer Review History

Original SubmissionJune 20, 2022
27 Sep 2022 Decision Letter - Kristina Weis Kintziger, Editor PONE-D-22-17313Short-term association between ambient air pollution and cardio-respiratory mortality in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.PLOS ONE Dear Dr. Cortes, Thank you for submitting your manuscript to PLOS ONE. After careful consideration, we feel that it has merit but does not fully meet PLOS ONE’s publication criteria as it currently stands. Therefore, we invite you to submit a revised version of the manuscript that addresses the points raised during the review process. ============================== The comments by Reviewer 1 related to measurement error and the validity of your exposure estimates are a major concern to me as well, and should be addressed more fully in your discussion section, and potentially adding additional detail in Methods or Results. While you do discuss the issues of measurement error already, the authors should attempt to further alleviate reviewer and reader concerns about the fewer stations available for pollutants, distance between residential addresses and stations for the deaths included, etc. It may be helpful to provide a map of the location of the stations for each exposure type along side the count of deaths by appropriate sub-city Census unit (so that death data remains de-identifiable) and calculate the average distances between deaths and stations, for example. These are just examples and the authors may decide on a better way to address these concerns. However, I do not agree that these issues should result in a rejection, if the authors are able to address them in more detail. I feel that this paper despite the null findings adds to the evidence base on this topic and represents sound statistical methods/analysis. ============================== Please submit your revised manuscript by Nov 11 2022 11:59PM. If you will need more time than this to complete your revisions, please reply to this message or contact the journal office at plosone@plos.org. When you're ready to submit your revision, log on to https://www.editorialmanager.com/pone/ and select the 'Submissions Needing Revision' folder to locate your manuscript file. Please include the following items when submitting your revised manuscript: A rebuttal letter that responds to each point raised by the academic editor and reviewer(s). You should upload this letter as a separate file labeled 'Response to Reviewers'. A marked-up copy of your manuscript that highlights changes made to the original version. You should upload this as a separate file labeled 'Revised Manuscript with Track Changes'. 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Read more information on sharing protocols at https://plos.org/protocols?utm_medium=editorial-email&utm_source=authorletters&utm_campaign=protocols. We look forward to receiving your revised manuscript. Kind regards, Kristina Weis Kintziger, PhD, MPH Academic Editor PLOS ONE Journal Requirements: When submitting your revision, we need you to address these additional requirements. 1. Please ensure that your manuscript meets PLOS ONE's style requirements, including those for file naming. The PLOS ONE style templates can be found at https://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/file?id=wjVg/PLOSOne_formatting_sample_main_body.pdf and https://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/file?id=ba62/PLOSOne_formatting_sample_title_authors_affiliations.pdf 2. Thank you for stating the following financial disclosure: This research was funded by the Coordination for the Improvement of Higher Education Personnel – CAPES (https://www.gov.br/capes/ ) (finance code 001), Foundation for Research Support of the State of Rio de Janeiro - FAPERJ (https://www.faperj.br/)(grant number E-26/202.756/2018), National Council of Technological and Scientific Development – CNPq (https://www.gov.br/cnpq/)(grant numbers 307495/2018-3 and 406292/2018-3) and the Wellcome Trust (https://wellcome.org/) (grant number 216087/Z/19/Z). Please state what role the funders took in the study. If the funders had no role, please state: "The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript." If this statement is not correct you must amend it as needed. Please include this amended Role of Funder statement in your cover letter; we will change the online submission form on your behalf. 3. We note that you have stated that you will provide repository information for your data at acceptance. Should your manuscript be accepted for publication, we will hold it until you provide the relevant accession numbers or DOIs necessary to access your data. If you wish to make changes to your Data Availability statement, please describe these changes in your cover letter and we will update your Data Availability statement to reflect the information you provide. 4. We note that you have included the phrase “data not shown” in your manuscript. Unfortunately, this does not meet our data sharing requirements. PLOS does not permit references to inaccessible data. We require that authors provide all relevant data within the paper, Supporting Information files, or in an acceptable, public repository. Please add a citation to support this phrase or upload the data that corresponds with these findings to a stable repository (such as Figshare or Dryad) and provide and URLs, DOIs, or accession numbers that may be used to access these data. Or, if the data are not a core part of the research being presented in your study, we ask that you remove the phrase that refers to these data. Additional Editor Comments: Additional things that should be addressed in the revision: 1. Please include the direct website link on Github for the available code and data. 2. In first paragraph of results, please provide the % of total deaths of each type that were included after all exclusions were made. [Note: HTML markup is below. Please do not edit.] Reviewers' comments: Reviewer's Responses to Questions Comments to the Author 1. Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions? The manuscript must describe a technically sound piece of scientific research with data that supports the conclusions. Experiments must have been conducted rigorously, with appropriate controls, replication, and sample sizes. The conclusions must be drawn appropriately based on the data presented. Reviewer #1: No Reviewer #2: Yes ******** 2. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously? Reviewer #1: No Reviewer #2: Yes ****** 3. Have the authors made all data underlying the findings in their manuscript fully available? The PLOS Data policy requires authors to make all data underlying the findings described in their manuscript fully available without restriction, with rare exception (please refer to the Data Availability Statement in the manuscript PDF file). The data should be provided as part of the manuscript or its supporting information, or deposited to a public repository. For example, in addition to summary statistics, the data points behind means, medians and variance measures should be available. If there are restrictions on publicly sharing data—e.g. participant privacy or use of data from a third party—those must be specified. Reviewer #1: Yes Reviewer #2: Yes ****** 4. Is the manuscript presented in an intelligible fashion and written in standard English? PLOS ONE does not copyedit accepted manuscripts, so the language in submitted articles must be clear, correct, and unambiguous. Any typographical or grammatical errors should be corrected at revision, so please note any specific errors here. Reviewer #1: Yes Reviewer #2: Yes ****** 5. Review Comments to the Author Please use the space provided to explain your answers to the questions above. You may also include additional comments for the author, including concerns about dual publication, research ethics, or publication ethics. (Please upload your review as an attachment if it exceeds 20,000 characters) Reviewer #1: The authors explored the associations between short-term exposures to PM10 and ozone and cardiovascular and respiratory mortality in Rio de Janeiro. They used a time-stratified case-crossover study design adjusting for temperature and humidity. The air pollution and meteorological data were obtained from the monitoring stations. The authors did not detect increased cardiovascular and respiratory mortality associated with both PM10 and ozone. The big question for me is the high degree of exposure measurement error due to the use of monitored data in the context of case crossover design. Generally, the weather station will be established far away from the urbanized areas, and the meteorological data might not be consistent to the city. This introduces large exposure error, which may attenuate the resulting effect estimates or even results in the regression coefficients to have the wrong sign. The authors should assess the validity. Reviewer #2: The comments are as attached in PDF form. Overall, it is a good attempt as I rarely seen researchers analyzed for individual level data, and usually people will only consider for pool health impacts. ****** 6. PLOS authors have the option to publish the peer review history of their article (what does this mean?). If published, this will include your full peer review and any attached files. If you choose “no”, your identity will remain anonymous but your review may still be made public. Do you want your identity to be public for this peer review? For information about this choice, including consent withdrawal, please see our Privacy Policy. Reviewer #1: No Reviewer #2: No ******** [NOTE: If reviewer comments were submitted as an attachment file, they will be attached to this email and accessible via the submission site. Please log into your account, locate the manuscript record, and check for the action link "View Attachments". If this link does not appear, there are no attachment files.] While revising your submission, please upload your figure files to the Preflight Analysis and Conversion Engine (PACE) digital diagnostic tool, https://pacev2.apexcovantage.com/. PACE helps ensure that figures meet PLOS requirements. To use PACE, you must first register as a user. Registration is free. Then, login and navigate to the UPLOAD tab, where you will find detailed instructions on how to use the tool. If you encounter any issues or have any questions when using PACE, please email PLOS at figures@plos.org. Please note that Supporting Information files do not need this step. Attachments Attachment Submitted filename: PONE-D-22-17313_reviewer.pdf https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0281499.r001
Revision 1
11 Nov 2022 Author Response Authors' responses: We thank the editor and both reviewers for their time and helpful suggestions for our paper. We have provided answers to each of your questions below. ============================================================ Editor: The comments by Reviewer 1 related to measurement error and the validity of your exposure estimates are a major concern to me as well, and should be addressed more fully in your discussion section, and potentially adding additional detail in Methods or Results. While you do discuss the issues of measurement error already, the authors should attempt to further alleviate reviewer and reader concerns about the fewer stations available for pollutants, distance between residential addresses and stations for the deaths included, etc. It may be helpful to provide a map of the location of the stations for each exposure type along side the count of deaths by appropriate sub-city Census unit (so that death data remains de-identifiable) and calculate the average distances between deaths and stations, for example. These are just examples and the authors may decide on a better way to address these concerns. However, I do not agree that these issues should result in a rejection, if the authors are able to address them in more detail. I feel that this paper despite the null findings adds to the evidence base on this topic and represents sound statistical methods/analysis. Authors' response: We agree that the limited availability of exposure data is an important limitation of our study. According to your suggestions, we added information on distance between residential addresses and monitoring stations, as well as a map displaying the locations of the pollutant stations and deaths density (Figure S1). The new version of our manuscript also includes the additional comment regarding measurement error: “However, the performance of spatial interpolation methods such as IDW may be limited in settings with a sparse monitoring network [38]. In our study, the average distance between the nearest monitoring stations and residential addresses was approximately 6 kilometers for PM10, 5 kilometers for O3 and 4 kilometers for the meteorological variables. Although we found similar results when excluding deaths whose geocoded address was located within 5km away from the nearest monitoring station (S5 Table), bias due to exposure measurement error is likely to have contributed to our findings” (p.10, lines 274-280). We hope that these revisions will be satisfactory. Additional Editor comments: Please include the direct website link on Github for the available code and data. Authors' response: The github (https://github.com/reprotc/Air_pollution_Rio) link has been added to the manuscript. In first paragraph of results, please provide the % of total deaths of each type that were included after all exclusions were made. Authors' response: We changed the paragraph in accordance with your recommendation (p. 6, lines 177-178). ============================================================ Responses to reviewers: Reviewer #1: The authors explored the associations between short-term exposures to PM10 and ozone and cardiovascular and respiratory mortality in Rio de Janeiro. They used a time-stratified case-crossover study design adjusting for temperature and humidity. The air pollution and meteorological data were obtained from the monitoring stations. The authors did not detect increased cardiovascular and respiratory mortality associated with both PM10 and ozone. The big question for me is the high degree of exposure measurement error due to the use of monitored data in the context of case crossover design. Generally, the weather station will be established far away from the urbanized areas, and the meteorological data might not be consistent to the city. This introduces large exposure error, which may attenuate the resulting effect estimates or even results in the regression coefficients to have the wrong sign. The authors should assess the validity. Authors' response: As previously mentioned, we provide additional information on the location of monitoring sites and the distribution of deaths in our study area, as well as a new paragraph discussing measurement error (please, see S1 Figure and p.10 lines 274-280). Unfortunately, it was not possible to implement statistical approaches to quantify the impacts of measurement error on our point estimates and confidence intervals. However, these untouched issues relate to exposure assessment will be the subject of our future investigation. Reviewer #2: It is better if you could use the latest reference (line 55) Authors' response: We appreciate the reviewer's suggestion. In the new version of the manuscript, we added the most recent report on the health impacts of air pollutants. Reviewer #2: Explain a little bit about how you get the sensitivity and specificity percentage Authors' response: We have added the following clarifications regarding the sensitivity and specificity of geocoding: “Residential addresses were geocoded and validated using the method described in a previous study [15]. In brief, we used different automated methods for address matching and validation, and the performance of the geocoding process was assessed by manually reviewing a sample of addresses. Out of the total deaths (n=132,863), approximately 86% (n=113,876) were geocoded to street level, with a sensitivity and specificity of 87% and 98%, respectively ” (p. 3, lines 89-93). Reviewer #2: Why temperature and relative humidity variables were taken, and not described in the title, abstract and introduction (lines 100-102) Authors' response: In response to the reviewer's question, we added to the abstract information about the meteorological variables used in our study. Since these variables were thought to be confounders, we assumed it would be appropriate to report them only in the abstract and methods section, as suggested by the STROBE. Reviewer #2: Is this sufficient to be extrapolated to the whole Rio de Janeiro? (lines 103-104) Authors' response: We agree that the representativeness of monitoring data is a important issue. In the new version of the manuscript, we attempted to address your question by including additional information on the stations density and futher discussion on exposure measurement error (please, see p.10 lines 274-280). We hope that these revisions will be satisfactory. Reviewer #2: Line 136-137: Why you consider only until lag 3? I found many publications with significant findings at Lag 6. Authors' response: To select the lag length, we first examined the relationship between air pollution and mortality using a lag of 15 days, as described in the supplemental material (Appendix S1). While the main results were presented with a maximum lag of three days, we found very similar results when using different lag periods (such as lag 0-5, lag 0-10 days), as described in our sensitivity analyses. Reviewer #2: why considered as non significant? it is a protective factor Authors' response: We revised the text based on your comment (Please, see p. 7, line 190) Reviewer #2: Line 230-231: Are they using Lag1-3? Authors' response: We agree that methodological aspects such as the lag duration should be considered when comparing risk estimates between studies. We believe, however, that our choices for the exposures lags does not appear to be the an explanation for our findings, as we found similar results using different lag structures (please, see S5 Table). Reviewer #2: Table 1: μg/m3 Authors' response: We appreciate the reviewer correction and have modified the text accordingly. Attachments Attachment Submitted filename: Response to reviewers.docx https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0281499.r002
13 Dec 2022 Decision Letter - Kristina Weis Kintziger, Editor PONE-D-22-17313R1Short-term association between ambient air pollution and cardio-respiratory mortality in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.PLOS ONE Dear Dr. Cortes, Thank you for submitting your manuscript to PLOS ONE. After careful consideration, we feel that it has merit but does not fully meet PLOS ONE’s publication criteria as it currently stands. Therefore, we invite you to submit a revised version of the manuscript that addresses the points raised during the review process. ============================== I am unable to make changes to authorship. Please add the new author as requested on 12/1/2022, in the location of your choosing and provide appropriate contact information, as needed. Then, resubmit the final version. Thank you for addressing all of my and the reviewers' concerns. ============================== Please submit your revised manuscript by Jan 27 2023 11:59PM. If you will need more time than this to complete your revisions, please reply to this message or contact the journal office at plosone@plos.org. When you're ready to submit your revision, log on to https://www.editorialmanager.com/pone/ and select the 'Submissions Needing Revision' folder to locate your manuscript file. Please include the following items when submitting your revised manuscript: A rebuttal letter that responds to each point raised by the academic editor and reviewer(s). You should upload this letter as a separate file labeled 'Response to Reviewers'. A marked-up copy of your manuscript that highlights changes made to the original version. You should upload this as a separate file labeled 'Revised Manuscript with Track Changes'. An unmarked version of your revised paper without tracked changes. You should upload this as a separate file labeled 'Manuscript'. If you would like to make changes to your financial disclosure, please include your updated statement in your cover letter. Guidelines for resubmitting your figure files are available below the reviewer comments at the end of this letter. If applicable, we recommend that you deposit your laboratory protocols in protocols.io to enhance the reproducibility of your results. Protocols.io assigns your protocol its own identifier (DOI) so that it can be cited independently in the future. For instructions see: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/submission-guidelines#loc-laboratory-protocols. Additionally, PLOS ONE offers an option for publishing peer-reviewed Lab Protocol articles, which describe protocols hosted on protocols.io. Read more information on sharing protocols at https://plos.org/protocols?utm_medium=editorial-email&utm_source=authorletters&utm_campaign=protocols. We look forward to receiving your revised manuscript. Kind regards, Kristina Weis Kintziger, PhD, MPH Academic Editor PLOS ONE Journal Requirements: Please review your reference list to ensure that it is complete and correct. If you have cited papers that have been retracted, please include the rationale for doing so in the manuscript text, or remove these references and replace them with relevant current references. Any changes to the reference list should be mentioned in the rebuttal letter that accompanies your revised manuscript. If you need to cite a retracted article, indicate the article’s retracted status in the References list and also include a citation and full reference for the retraction notice. Additional Editor Comments (if provided): Thank you for the revisions to your manuscript. All requests have been adequately addressed. Please add the additional co-author with appropriate contact or other information as requested on 12/1 by the corresponding author and resubmit a final version. [Note: HTML markup is below. Please do not edit.] Reviewers' comments: [NOTE: If reviewer comments were submitted as an attachment file, they will be attached to this email and accessible via the submission site. Please log into your account, locate the manuscript record, and check for the action link "View Attachments". If this link does not appear, there are no attachment files.] While revising your submission, please upload your figure files to the Preflight Analysis and Conversion Engine (PACE) digital diagnostic tool, https://pacev2.apexcovantage.com/. PACE helps ensure that figures meet PLOS requirements. To use PACE, you must first register as a user. Registration is free. Then, login and navigate to the UPLOAD tab, where you will find detailed instructions on how to use the tool. If you encounter any issues or have any questions when using PACE, please email PLOS at figures@plos.org. Please note that Supporting Information files do not need this step. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0281499.r003
Revision 2
5 Jan 2023 Author Response Editor: I am unable to make changes to authorship. Please add the new author as requested on 12/1/2022, in the location of your choosing and provide appropriate contact information, as needed. Then, resubmit the final version. Thank you for addressing all of my and the reviewers' concerns. Additional Editor comments: Thank you for the revisions to your manuscript. All requests have been adequately addressed. Please add the additional co-author with appropriate contact or other information as requested on 12/1 by the corresponding author and resubmit a final version. Authors' response: We thank you for your time and suggestions and for providing us with the opportunity to submit a final version of our manuscript. We added the new author with appropriate contact information. In addition, we have made few minor modifications to the manuscript, primarily the correction of typographical errors (lines 114, 205, 300) and the addition of citations for a few statements (line 264). Journal Requirements: Please review your reference list to ensure that it is complete and correct. If you have cited papers that have been retracted, please include the rationale for doing so in the manuscript text, or remove these references and replace them with relevant current references. Any changes to the reference list should be mentioned in the rebuttal letter that accompanies your revised manuscript. If you need to cite a retracted article, indicate the article’s retracted status in the References list and also include a citation and full reference for the retraction notice. Authors' response: We checked the reference list and found no retractions. However, we corrected the manuscript title of reference 34, which was incomplete. Attachments Attachment Submitted filename: Response to Reviewers.docx https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0281499.r004
25 Jan 2023 Decision Letter - Kristina Weis Kintziger, Editor Short-term association between ambient air pollution and cardio-respiratory mortality in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. PONE-D-22-17313R2 Dear Dr. Cortes, We’re pleased to inform you that your manuscript has been judged scientifically suitable for publication and will be formally accepted for publication once it meets all outstanding technical requirements. Within one week, you’ll receive an e-mail detailing the required amendments. When these have been addressed, you’ll receive a formal acceptance letter and your manuscript will be scheduled for publication. An invoice for payment will follow shortly after the formal acceptance. To ensure an efficient process, please log into Editorial Manager at http://www.editorialmanager.com/pone/, click the 'Update My Information' link at the top of the page, and double check that your user information is up-to-date. If you have any billing related questions, please contact our Author Billing department directly at authorbilling@plos.org. If your institution or institutions have a press office, please notify them about your upcoming paper to help maximize its impact. If they’ll be preparing press materials, please inform our press team as soon as possible -- no later than 48 hours after receiving the formal acceptance. Your manuscript will remain under strict press embargo until 2 pm Eastern Time on the date of publication. For more information, please contact onepress@plos.org. Kind regards, Kristina Weis Kintziger, PhD, MPH Academic Editor PLOS ONE Additional Editor Comments (optional): Thank you for addressing all of the reviewers', editor's, and journal's requests. I have submitted a decision of "Accept". Reviewers' comments: https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0281499.r005
Formally Accepted
7 Feb 2023 Acceptance Letter - Kristina Weis Kintziger, Editor PONE-D-22-17313R2 Short-term association between ambient air pollution and cardio-respiratory mortality in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Dear Dr. Cortes: I'm pleased to inform you that your manuscript has been deemed suitable for publication in PLOS ONE. Congratulations! Your manuscript is now with our production department. If your institution or institutions have a press office, please let them know about your upcoming paper now to help maximize its impact. If they'll be preparing press materials, please inform our press team within the next 48 hours. Your manuscript will remain under strict press embargo until 2 pm Eastern Time on the date of publication. For more information please contact onepress@plos.org. If we can help with anything else, please email us at plosone@plos.org. Thank you for submitting your work to PLOS ONE and supporting open access. Kind regards, PLOS ONE Editorial Office Staff on behalf of Dr. Kristina Weis Kintziger Academic Editor PLOS ONE https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0281499.r006

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