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Tracey J. Woodruff,¹ Jennifer D. Parker,² and Kenneth C. Schoendorf²

¹Office of Policy, Economics, and Innovation, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, San Francisco, California, USA; ²National Center for Health Statistics, Hyattsville, Maryland, USA

Abstract
Studies suggest that airborne particulate matter (PM) may be associated with postneonatal infant mortality, particularly with respiratory causes and sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) . To further explore this issue, we examined the relationship between long-term exposure to fine PM air pollution and postneonatal infant mortality in California. We linked monitoring data for PM ≤ 2.5 µm in aerodynamic diameter (PM_2.5) to infants born in California in 1999 and 2000 using maternal addresses for mothers who lived within 5 miles of a PM_2.5 monitor. We matched each postneonatal infant death to four infants surviving to 1 year of age, by birth weight category and date of birth (within 2 weeks) . For each matched set, we calculated exposure as the average PM_2.5 concentration over the period of life for the infant who died. We used conditional logistic regression to estimate the odds of postneonatal all-cause, respiratory-related, SIDS, and external-cause (a control category) mortality by exposure to PM_2.5, controlling for the matched sets and maternal demographic factors. We matched 788 postneonatal infant deaths to 3,089 infant survivors, with 51 and 120 postneonatal deaths due to respiratory causes and SIDS, respectively. We found an adjusted odds ratio for a 10-µg/m³ increase in PM_2.5 of 1.07 [95% confidence interval (CI) , 0.93-1.24] for overall postneonatal mortality, 2.13 (95% CI, 1.12-4.05) for respiratory-related postneonatal mortality, 0.82 (95% CI, 0.55-1.23) for SIDS, and 0.83 (95% CI, 0.50-1.39) for external causes. The California findings add further evidence of a PM air pollution effect on respiratory-related postneonatal infant mortality. Key words: air pollution, infant mortality, particulate matter air pollution, PM_2.5, postneonatal. Environ Health Perspect 114:786-790 (2006) . doi:10.1289/ehp.8484 available via http://dx.doi.org/ [Online 13 January 2006]

Address correspondence to T.J. Woodruff, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, 75 Hawthorne St. PPA-1, San Francisco, CA 94105 USA. Telephone: (415) 947-4277. Fax: (415) 947-3519. E-mail: woodruff.tracey@epa.gov

We thank K. Heck, formerly of the California Department of Health, now with the University of California, Davis, who assisted us with obtaining the California data and geocoded the birth records ; and M. Saulnier, formerly of NOVA Research, and C. Duran, at National Center for Health Statistics, who performed much of the programming.

The views in this article represent those of the authors and not necessarily those of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency or the National Center for Health Statistics.

The authors declare they have no competing financial interests.

Received 10 July 2005 ; accepted 12 January 2006.