Association between Air Pollution and the Development of Rheumatic Disease: A Systematic Review

Table 1

Description of studies included for synthesis.

Disease studied	Author and year	Country or region	Type of study	Sample	Case definition for diagnosis of rheumatic disease	Years of study	Air pollutants studied	Method to determine exposure
Rheumatoid arthritis	Chang et al., 2016 [17]	Taiwan	Cohort	Population at risk; NO2 exposure, ,419, with cases; PM2.5 exposure, ,413, with cases	Administrative data, 1 ICD-9-CM code for RA	2000–2010	NO2, PM2.5	Monitoring sites
	De Roos et al., 2014 [18]	British Columbia, Canada	Nested case-control	Controls, ,066; Cases, ,911	Administrative data, 2 ICD-9 codes for RA with minimum 1 visit to physician specialist	1994–2002	NO2, SO2, PM2.5, PM10, CO, NO, black carbon, ozone	Land use regression method for black carbon, PM2.5, NO2, NO; Inverse distance weighting method for PM10, NO, SO2, Ozone, CO
	Hart et al., 2013 [19]	Sweden	Case-control	Controls, ,536; Cases, ,497	Rheumatologist history and exam	1996–2008	NO2, SO2, PM10	Land use regression
	Hart et al., 2013 [20]	USA	Cohort	Population at risk, ,425; Cases,	Self-report and medical chart review	1986–2006	NO2, SO2, PM2.5, PM10	Land use regression
Systemic autoimmune rheumatic disease	Bernatsky et al., 2016 [21]	Quebec and Alberta, Canada	Cohort	Quebec estimated population at risk, ,977,960; Estimated cases, ,330; Alberta estimated population at risk, ,053,980; Estimated cases, ,180	Administrative data, 2 ICD-9 codes for SARD or 1 ICD-9 code for SARD by a rheumatologist or 1 instance of hospitalization	Quebec, 1996–2011; Alberta, 1993–2007	PM2.5	Satellite-derived data of exposure levels at location of residence at time of diagnosis
	Bernatsky et al., 2015 [22]	Calgary, Alberta, Canada	Cohort	Not provided	Administrative data, 2 ICD-9 codes for SARD or 1 ICD-9 code for SARD by a rheumatologist or 1 instance of hospitalization	1993–2007	PM2.5, NO2	Land use regression
Juvenile idiopathic arthritis	Zeft et al., 2009 [23]	USA	Cohort (case-crossover)	Cases,	Clinical registry	1993–2006	PM2.5	Monitoring sites; No intercept regression models
	Zeft et al., 2014 [24]	USA and Canada	Cohort (case-crossover)	Not mentioned in abstract	Not specified	Not mentioned in abstract	PM2.5	Selected exposure windows but no mention of extrapolation