Quantifying the short-term effects of air pollution on health in the presence of exposure measurement error: a simulation study of multi-pollutant model results

BACKGROUND: Most epidemiological studies estimate associations without considering exposure measurement error. While some studies have estimated the impact of error in single-exposure models we aimed to quantify the effect of measurement error in multi-exposure models, specifically in time-series analysis of PM(2.5), NO(2), and mortality using simulations, under various plausible scenarios for exposure errors. Measurement error in multi-exposure models can lead to effect transfer where the effect estimate is overestimated for the pollutant estimated with more error to the one estimated with less error. This complicates interpretation of the independent effects of different pollutants and thus the relative importance of reducing their concentrations in air pollution policy. METHODS: Measurement error was defined as the difference between ambient concentrations and personal exposure from outdoor sources. Simulation inputs for error magnitude and variability were informed by the literature. Error-free exposures with their consequent health outcome and error-prone exposures of various error types (classical/Berkson) were generated. Bias was quantified as the relative difference in effect estimates of the error-free and error-prone exposures. RESULTS: Mortality effect estimates were generally underestimated with greater bias observed when low ratios of the true exposure variance over the error variance were assumed (27.4% underestimation for NO(2)). Higher ratios resulted in smaller, but still substantial bias (up to 19% for both pollutants). Effect transfer was observed indicating that less precise measurements for one pollutant (NO(2)) yield more bias, while the co-pollutant (PM(2.5)) associations were found closer to the true. Interestingly, the sum of single-pollutant model effect estimates was found closer to the summed true associations than those from multi-pollutant models, due to cancelling out of confounding and measurement error bias. CONCLUSIONS: Our simulation study indicated an underestimation of true independent health effects of multiple exposures due to measurement error. Using error parameter information in future epidemiological studies should provide more accurate concentration-response functions. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s12940-021-00757-4.