TY  - JOUR
PY  - 2012//
TI  - The role of ambient ozone in epidemiologic studies of heat-related mortality
JO  - Environmental health perspectives
A1  - Reid, Colleen E.
A1  - Snowden, Jonathan M.
A1  - Kontgis, Caitlin
A1  - Tager, Ira B.
SP  - 1627
EP  - 1630
VL  - 120
IS  - 12
N2  - 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>
LA  - en
SN  - 0091-6765
UR  - http://dx.doi.org/10.1289/ehp.1205251
ID  - ref1
ER  -