----- Forwarded by Zachary Pekar/RTP/USEPA/US on 10/15/2012 02:10 PM -----

From: "Zanobetti, Antonella" <azanobet@hsph.harvard.edu>

To: Zachary Pekar/RTP/USEPA/US@EPA

Date: 04/19/2012 03:26 PM

Subject: RE: Request for city-specific effect estimates for potential use in the EPA's ozone NAAQS risk 

assessment

Hi Zack,

Check if this is OK

Antonella

From: Zachary Pekar [mailto:Pekar.Zachary@epamail.epa.gov] 

Sent: Thursday, April 19, 2012 2:20 PM

To: Zanobetti, Antonella

Cc: Bryan Hubbell

Subject: RE: Request for city-specific effect estimates for potential use in the EPA's ozone NAAQS risk 

assessment

Thanks for the support on this and I apologize if I sounded pushy - feeling the effects of our tight time 

table :) Thanks again,

zach

Zachary Pekar, MSPH, PhD

Human Health Risk Assessment

Office of Air Quality Planning and Standards

U.S. Environmental Protection Agency

tele: (919) 541-3704

e-mail: pekar.zachary@epa.gov

"Zanobetti, Antonella" ---04/19/2012 02:15:08 PM---Hi Zack, I am trying to do this ASAP, just need to 

finish some other analysis first

From: "Zanobetti, Antonella" <azanobet@hsph.harvard.edu>

To: Zachary Pekar/RTP/USEPA/US@EPA

Date: 04/19/2012 02:15 PM

Subject: RE: Request for city-specific effect estimates for potential use in the EPA's ozone NAAQS risk assessment

Hi Zack,

I am trying to do this ASAP, just need to finish some other analysis first

Antonella

From: Zachary Pekar [mailto:Pekar.Zachary@epamail.epa.gov] 

Sent: Thursday, April 19, 2012 12:57 PM

To: Zanobetti, Antonella
Cc: Bryan Hubbell; Neal Fann; Pradeep Rajan

Subject: RE: Request for city-specific effect estimates for potential use in the EPA's ozone NAAQS risk 

assessment

Antonella - just following up on our request. Given how busy you are, the priority for us would be to first 

get the air quality summary data for the metrics used in the mortality study (i.e., 8hr average ozone by 

city, as described below). The city-specific unadjusted HA effect estimates are also important, but not as 

critical as the exposure metric data used in the mortality study. Please let me know if and when you might 

be able to get us the air quality metric summary data (by city) associated with the mortality study. Thanks,

zach

Zachary Pekar, MSPH, PhD

Human Health Risk Assessment

Office of Air Quality Planning and Standards

U.S. Environmental Protection Agency

tele: (919) 541-3704

e-mail: pekar.zachary@epa.gov

"Zanobetti, Antonella" ---04/12/2012 04:01:14 PM---Hi Zack, Thanks for the reminder!

From: "Zanobetti, Antonella" <azanobet@hsph.harvard.edu>

To: Zachary Pekar/RTP/USEPA/US@EPA

Cc: Bryan Hubbell/RTP/USEPA/US@EPA, Neal Fann/RTP/USEPA/US@EPA, Pradeep Rajan/RTP/USEPA/US@EPA

Date: 04/12/2012 04:01 PM

Subject: RE: Request for city-specific effect estimates for potential use in the EPA's ozone NAAQS risk assessment

Hi Zack,

Thanks for the reminder!

I don’t have time today, but I will look for Mercedes city specific results. 

I will also let you know about your first question.

Also: are you interested in our long term effect of ozone?

Antonella

From: Zachary Pekar [mailto:Pekar.Zachary@epamail.epa.gov] 

Sent: Thursday, April 12, 2012 3:42 PM

To: Zanobetti, Antonella

Cc: Bryan Hubbell; Neal Fann; Pradeep Rajan

Subject: Re: Request for city-specific effect estimates for potential use in the EPA's ozone NAAQS risk 

assessment

Antonella,

I wanted to check in with you on two items:

a) in modeling short-term exposure-related mortality for the ozone review, as you know, we will be using 

the adjusted city-specific effect estimates you provided several months ago (thanks again for those!). As 

part of that analysis, we were planning to look at the fraction of risk that is associated with various 
increments of ambient ozone. Our goal here would be to identify the fraction of modeled risk that is 

associated with reduced confidence since it falls across an ambient ozone range at the lower end of the 

dataset used in driving the effect estimates used in modeling risk. Therefore, in defining those ambient 

ozone increments, we were hoping to use specific percentiles of the ambient ozone levels you used in 

your epidemiological study - the study that provided the shrunken city-specific effect estimates. 

Furthermore, we were hoping to implement this assessment at the city-specific level. Consequently, 

would you be able to provide us with: (a) the lowest ozone level, and (b) the 5th, 10th, 25th, 50th and 75th 

percentile ambient ozone levels you used in generating the shrunken city-specific estimates and could we 

have these metrics by city? If it is easier to provide this city-specific air metric data just for the 12 cities we 

will be including in the ozone risk assessment that would also work (the cities are: Atlanta, Boston, 

Cleveland, Detroit, Houston, LA, NYC, Pili, Sacramento, Baltimore, Denver, St. Louis). The study of yours 

I am referring to here (just to be clear) is: Zanobetti and Schwartz 2008b “Mortality displacement....”.

We can certainly discuss this request if that would be helpful. 

b) in addition, you had asked me to remind you about sending us the city-specific (unadjusted) effect 

estimates for hospital admissions (respiratory effects) related to short-term ozone exposure. The original 

request I sent to you for those data included the following description of the effect estimates we are 

looking to obtain: 

As part of that risk assessment, we are considering modeling morbidity endpoints (including hospital 

admissions for respiratory effects) associated with shorter-term ozone exposure. We have identified your 

epidemiological study ("The Effect of Ozone and PM10 on Hospital Admissions for Pneumonia and 

Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease: A National Multicity Study" - AJ of Epidemiology, Vol 183, No 5, 

p. 579) as a potential source for effect estimates to use in our risk modeling. We would like to conduct 

modeling for individual urban study areas and therefore, were hoping that you would be able to provide us 

with the city-specific effect estimates for ozone (2-day cumulative lag) from your study. These would be 

the city-specific effect estimates reflected in Figure 1. In addition, if you do provide the city-specific effect 

estimates, would you clarify the lag structure reflected in those estimates (we assume they would reflect a 

2 day cumulative lag) and whether those effect estimates reflect a two-pollutant model that also accounts 

for PM10 or a single pollutant (ozone only) model. 

Thanks for considering this request and as we have discussed in the past, any information we obtain 

would need to be able to be placed in the docket in memo form for public access (to be fully transparent 

regarding our data and methods). Thanks again,

zach

Zachary Pekar, MSPH, PhD

Human Health Risk Assessment

Office of Air Quality Planning and Standards

U.S. Environmental Protection Agency

tele: (919) 541-3704

e-mail: pekar.zachary@epa.gov

"Antonella Zanobetti" ---03/14/2012 02:53:30 PM---Hi Zach,

From: "Antonella Zanobetti" <AZANOBET@hsph.harvard.edu>

To: Zachary Pekar/RTP/USEPA/US@EPA

Cc: Neal Fann/RTP/USEPA/US@EPA, Bryan Hubbell/RTP/USEPA/US@EPA, Pradeep Rajan/RTP/USEPA/US@EPA

Date: 03/14/2012 02:53 PM

Subject: Re: Request for city-specific effect estimates for potential use in the EPA's ozone NAAQS risk assessment

Hi Zach,
I need to check if I have these.

I will get back to you, if I don't within few days please remind me!!!

thanks

Antonella

>>> Zachary Pekar <Pekar.Zachary@epamail.epa.gov> 3/14/2012 1:54 PM >>> 

Antonellal,

I had originally sent this e-mail to Dr. Medina-Ramon, but it bounced back, so I am 

forwarding the original e-mail to you in the hopes that you can help with this request for 

city-specific effect estimates related to respiratory hospital admissions - the original email is below (if you have current contact info for Dr. Medina-Ramon and would rather 

have me contact her, just let me know). Thanks!

-----------------------

I am the lead on the ozone risk assessment being completed by EPA as part of our 

ongoing review of the National Ambient Air Quality Standard (NAAQS) for ozone. As part 

of that risk assessment, we are considering modeling morbidity endpoints (including 

hospital admissions for respiratory effects) associated with shorter-term ozone exposure. 

We have identified your epidemiological study ("The Effect of Ozone and PM10 on 

Hospital Admissions for Pneumonia and Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease: A 

National Multicity Study" - AJ of Epidemiology, Vol 183, No 5, p. 579) as a potential 

source for effect estimates to use in our risk modeling. We would like to conduct 

modeling for individual urban study areas and therefore, were hoping that you would be 

able to provide us with the city-specific effect estimates for ozone (2-day cumulative lag) 

from your study. These would be the city-specific effect estimates reflected in Figure 1. In 

addition, if you do provide the city-specific effect estimates, would you clarify the lag 

structure reflected in those estimates (we assume they would reflect a 2 day cumulative 

lag) and whether those effect estimates reflect a two-pollutant model that also accounts 

for PM10 or a single pollutant (ozone only) model. 

If we do use those effect estimates, in order to be transparent with our modeling, we 

would need to post them publically (probably in memo format), so I wanted to also verify 

that that would be ok.

As you probably would expect, our time table is tight for this risk assessment, so if you 

can provide us with the effect estimates, it would be great to have them in the near term.

Thanks and please let me know if you have any questions.

zach

Zachary Pekar, MSPH, PhD

Human Health Risk Assessment

Office of Air Quality Planning and Standards

U.S. Environmental Protection Agency

tele: (919) 541-3704

e-mail: pekar.zachary@epa.gov [attachment "desc o3.xlsx" deleted by Zachary 

Pekar/RTP/USEPA/US]