The effect of air pollution on hospitalizations with Parkinson’s disease among medicare beneficiaries nationwide

We examined the effect of annual exposure to fine particulate matter (PM_2.5), nitrogen dioxide (NO₂), and ozone (O₃), on the rate of first hospitalization with a PD-related diagnosis (hospitalization with PD) among Medicare Fee-for-Service beneficiaries (2001-2016). Machine learning-derived annual air pollution concentrations were linked to residential ZIP codes. For each exposure, we fitted four models: 1) traditional outcome stratification, 2) marginal structural, 3) doubly robust, and 4) generalized propensity score matching Poisson regression models, adjusted for sociodemographic and meteorological confounders and long-term trends. Among 49,121,026 beneficiaries, incidence rate ratios of 1.08 (95% CI: 1.07, 1.10), 1.07 (95% CI: 1.05, 1.08), and 1.03 (95% CI: 1.02, 1.05) for an interquartile range increase in PM_2.5 (3.72 µg/m³), NO₂ (13.84 ppb), and O₃ (10.09 ppb), respectively, were estimated from doubly robust models. Results were similar across modeling approaches. In this nationwide study, higher air pollution exposure increased the rate of hospitalizations with PD.