Many, many studies have found an association between particulate air pollution and morbidity and mortality. One of the key studies, the Harvard Six Cities study was a prospective study which found increased mortality among residents of several high PM cities compared to low PM ones. While this study was reviewed and reanalyzed, no one has examined the larger aspect of these health effects. In this study, hospitalization rates were examined, by cause, for the six cities originally studied by Dockery et al. In addition to examining these results, two additional geographic areas were added in order to validate the Medicare data to ensure that they were sensitive enough to detect differences that might exist. The results indicate that these data are sensitive enough to identify differences based on behavioral factors. These analyses support the findings of others that particulate air pollution does have some small, but significant, effect on hospitalization rates, in general, and on cardiovascular diseases, in particular.
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