@article{ref1,
title="The role of ambient ozone in epidemiologic studies of heat-related mortality",
journal="Environmental health perspectives",
year="2012",
author="Reid, Colleen E. and Snowden, Jonathan M. and Kontgis, Caitlin and Tager, Ira B.",
volume="120",
number="12",
pages="1627-1630",
abstract="Background: A large and growing literature investigating the role of extreme heat on mortality has conceived of the role of ambient ozone in various ways, sometimes treating it as a confounder, sometimes as an effect modifier, and sometimes as a co-exposure. Thus, there is a lack of consensus about the roles that temperature and ozone together play in causing mortality. Objectives: We apply directed acyclic graphs (DAGs) to the topic of heat-related mortality to graphically represent the subject matter behind the research questions and to provide insight on the analytical options available. Discussion: Based on the subject matter encoded in the graphs, we assert that the role of ozone in studies of temperature and mortality is a causal intermediate that is affected by temperature and can also affect mortality, rather than a confounder. Conclusions: We discuss possible questions of interest implied by this causal structure and propose areas of future work to further clarify the role of air pollutants in epidemiologic studies of extreme temperature.<p /> <p>Language: en</p>",
language="en",
issn="0091-6765",
doi="10.1289/ehp.1205251",
url="http://dx.doi.org/10.1289/ehp.1205251"
}