Air quality and COVID-19: An individual-based population study

Air pollution is suspected to play an important role for both spread and severity of COVID-19, but is difficult to study because of multiple confounding factors that need to be addressed.

The aims of this project are:1) Study associations between air pollution and COVID-19 contagiousness and severity in a wide perspective, both for short and long term exposures; 2) Study if changes in air pollution during the pandemic changed the use of medications such as asthma inhalers, and if such changes are meaningful to COVID-19 outcomes; 3) Study health economic impact of changes in air pollution.We will use data from two large Swedish population-based studies (n=35.000), with detailed information on participants´ diseases, weight etc.

We will add already collected data on exposure to air pollution based on the participants´ home addresses, both during the pandemic and historically, and grade overcrowding.

Lastly we will gather register data on PCR-verified COVID-19 infections, medications, hospital admissions and death.Using this database, we can on an individual-level perform detailed analyses of the above-mentioned aims, while adjusting for riskmodifying factors.This project will give us important information on the role of air pollution in the spread of respiratory viruses such as COVID-19, if short-term changes in air pollution affect the spread, and if medications such as inhaled corticosteroids can influence the association.