Fw: Re: Urgent Request for Information from your 2007 study Pradeep Rajan to: Tricia Crabtree 12/17/2010 02:49 PM Show Details

Pradeep Rajan, ScD Ambient Standards Group Health and Environmental Impacts Division Office of Air Quality Planning and Standards U.S. EPA mail code: C504-06 RTP, NC 27711 office: 919-541-2580 fax: 919-541-0237 email: rajan.pradeep@epa.gov
-----Forwarded by Pradeep Rajan/RTP/USEPA/US on 12/17/2010 02:49PM -----

To: Pradeep Rajan/RTP/USEPA/US@EPA From: kamiller@u.washington.edu Date: 08/24/2010 01:34AM cc: joelk@uw.edu, Karen Martin/RTP/USEPA/US@ EPA, Bryan Hubbell/RTP/USEPA/US@EPA, Beth Hassett-Sipple/RTP/USEPA/US@EPA Subject: Re: Urgent Request for Information from your 2007 study

Dr. Pradeep,

We appreciate the careful attention you and your colleagues are giving to this research and the opportunity to discuss issues related to our 2007 NEJM paper.

Per your request, I prepared a table showing a list of the MSA's and the number of WHI subjects from each which were included in the main analyses. I hope this will be useful for your purposes.

Unfortunately, as you have anticipated per our data used agreement I am not able to release data on the number of cardiovascular deathsby MSA without approval from oversight committees in the NHLBIsponsored WHI study.

I would also draw your attention to Figure S1 in the supplementary appendix published with our paper, as I think this may also assist you in this inquiry. This figure, along with the number of participants by site, may provide a visual representation of the information you are seeking. It also turns out that, in responding to your inquiry, we detected a typographical error in the Page 1 of 4

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...supplementary appendix document published online. The figure shows risk of CVD mortality (not including nonfatal events) and should be labeled “Figure S1. Fine Particulate Air Pollution and Risk of Cardiovascular Disease Mortality in Women, by Metropolitan Area.” The legend should say, “Using the lowest exposure city (Honolulu) as a reference, the figure shows the city-specific hazard ratio for cardiovascular disease mortality, adjusting for age, ethnicity, education, household income, smoking status, years smoked, cigarettes per day, diabetes, hypertension, systolic blood pressure, BMI, and h! ypercholesterolemia. Indicator variables were included for each city.” Dr. Kaufman will be in contact with the Journal editorial staff to inform them of this correction.

Further, may we remind you that in our study roughly half of the exposure heterogeneity comes from within- c ity exposure contrasts. So to get a more precise idea of the exposure distribution I would actually focus on individual exposure and not the city-average exposure. Thus I would direct you to the first row of Tables 1 and 2, for the individual-level exposure range and number of subjects in each quintile and additional statistics for this exposure metric. A visual depiction of the same data is in the lower portion of Figure 1a. It may be worth noting that 66% of the study population had annual average exposure less than the current regulatory standard of 15 μ g/m3.

Best Regards,

Kristin

Kristin Miller Department of Epidemiology University of Washington Box 357236, Seattle WA 98195

On Fri, 20 Aug 2010, Rajan.Pradeep@epamail.epa.gov wrote:

> > Dear Dr. Miller,
> > > > Subsequent to our recent discussions with you regarding the confidence bounds associated with a PM2.5 concentration-response > function, we were asked by our CASAC to consider information on the concentrations that were most influential in generating the Page 2 of 4

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...> health effect estimates reported in individual epidemiological studies.
> > > > Consequently, we are interested in examining the distribution of PM2.5 concentrations in conjunction with the number of deaths> among the cohort members included in your published study “Longterm exposure to air pollution and incidence of cardiovascular > events in women.”
> > > > Specifically, if available we are interested in receiving from you the MSA-specific number of deaths from cardiovascular disease > and the MSA-specific number of WHI participants for each of the 36 MSAs included in your analysis across the entire study time > period.
> >> If you find that is not feasible to provide us with the MSAspecific number of deaths we would appreciate receiving just the > MSA-specific number of study participants across the entire study period.
> > > > We anticipate that this information would provide us with an understanding of the distribution of PM2.5 concentrations linked with > the health effect among your study population and therefore an indication of which PM2.5 concentrations are likely to be most > influential in generating the reported health effect estimates.
> > > > Thanks in advance for your help!
> > > > Pradeep Rajan
> > > > Pradeep Rajan, ScD > Ambient Standards Group > Health and Environmental Impacts Division > Office of Air Quality Planning and Standards > U.S. EPA > mail code: C504-06 Page 3 of 4

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...> RTP, NC 27711 > office: 919-541-2580 > fax: 919-541-0237 > email: rajan.pradeep@epa.gov
> > > Page 4 of 4

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