Air pollution linked to depression in the elderly: study

February 13, 2023 – Researchers from Harvard and Emory universities have found a link between long-term exposure to air pollution and being diagnosed with depression after age 64.

“Depression in the elderly is a concern and may be as important as dementia,” the authors write, noting that previous studies have shown the impact of air pollution on mental health.

The study was published Friday in Open JAMA Network. The researchers analyzed Medicare data from 2005 to 2016 for 8.9 million people aged 64 and older, of whom 57% were women and 90% were white. During the study, more than 1.5 million people were diagnosed with depression.

The researchers looked at air pollution data for the postcode associated with where each person in the study lived for a period of 16 years. The three air pollutants studied were:

• Fine particleswhich are tiny particles such as those that can make the air foggy when pollution levels are high.
• Ozonealso known as smog, which comes from sources such as exhaust pipes and chimneys.
• Nitrogen dioxidewhich is part of the gas group that is formed when fossil fuels such as coal, oil, gas or diesel are burned.

Prolonged exposure to each of the three pollutants was linked to an increased risk of a new diagnosis of depression. The researchers found that exposure to nitrogen dioxide was particularly dangerous.

Depression later in life is often underdiagnosed, according to the CDCbecause “health care providers may confuse an older person’s symptoms of depression with just a natural reaction to illness or life changes that may occur with age, and therefore may not view depression as something something to deal with”.

“That’s one of the main reasons we wanted to conduct this analysis,” said Xinye Qiu, PhD, research fellow at Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health. CNN. “Surprisingly, we saw a large number of late-onset depression diagnoses in this study.”

The authors write that they hope environmental regulators and public health officials will consider the impact of air pollution when considering the prevention of depression in older adults.

“We hope that this study can inspire researchers to further examine possible environmental risk factors (such as air pollution and living environment) for the prevention of geriatric depression, to better understand the disease in future and improve the delivery of mental health care services to older adults,” they write.