Long-term exposure to ambient ozone and adult-onset asthma: A prospective cohort study

Background The association between long-term exposure to ozone (O3) and adult-onset asthma (AOA) remains inconclusive, and analysis of causality is lacking. Objectives To examine the causal association between long-term O3 exposure and AOA. Methods A prospective cohort study of 362,098 participants was conducted using the UK Biobank study. Incident cases of AOA were identified using health administrative data of the National Health Services. O3 exposure at participants’ residential addresses was estimated by a spatio-temporal model. Instrumental variable (IV) modelling was used to analyze the causal association between O3 exposure and AOA, by incorporating wind speed and planetary boundary layer height as IVs into time-dependent Cox model. Negative control outcome (accidental injury) was also used to additionally evaluate unmeasured confounding. Results During a mean follow-up of 11.38 years, a total of 10,973 incident AOA cases were identified. A U-shaped concentration-response relationship was observed between O3 exposure and AOA in the traditional Cox models with HR of 0.917 (95% CI: 0.889, 0.946) for O3 at low levels (<38.17 ppb), and 1.198 (95% CI: 1.162, 1.236) for O3 at high levels (≥38.17 ppb). However, in the IV analysis we only found a statistically significant association between high-level O3 exposure and AOA risk, but not for low-level O3 exposure. No significant associations between O3 exposure and accidental injury were observed. Conclusion Our findings suggest a potential causal relationship between long-term exposure to high-level ambient O3 and increased risks of AOA.