Short-term air pollution exposure associated with death from kidney diseases: a nationwide time-stratified case-crossover study in China from 2015 to 2019

BACKGROUND: Long-term exposure to air pollution has been associated with the onset and progression of kidney diseases, but the association between short-term exposure to air pollution and mortality of kidney diseases has not yet been reported. METHODS: A nationally representative sample of 101,919 deaths from kidney diseases was collected from the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention from 2015 to 2019. A time-stratified case-crossover study was applied to determine the associations. Satellite-based estimates of air pollution were assigned to each case and control day using a bilinear interpolation approach and geo-coded residential addresses. Conditional logistic regression models were constructed to estimate the associations adjusting for nonlinear splines of temperature and relative humidity. RESULTS: Each 10 µg/m(3) increment in lag 0–1 mean concentrations of air pollutants was associated with a percent increase in death from kidney disease: 1.33% (95% confidence interval [CI]: 0.57% to 2.1%) for PM(1), 0.49% (95% CI: 0.10% to 0.88%) for PM(2.5), 0.32% (95% CI: 0.08% to 0.57%) for PM(10), 1.26% (95% CI: 0.29% to 2.24%) for NO(2), and 2.9% (95% CI: 1.68% to 4.15%) for SO(2). CONCLUSIONS: Our study suggests that short-term exposure to ambient PM(1), PM(2.5), PM(10), NO(2), and SO(2) might be important environmental risk factors for death due to kidney diseases in China. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s12916-023-02734-9.