Association between early preterm birth and maternal exposure to fine particular matter (PM₁₀): A nation-wide population-based cohort study using machine learning

by Eun-Saem Choi, Jue Seong Lee, Yujin Hwang, Kwang-Sig Lee, Ki Hoon Ahn

Although preterm birth (PTB), a birth before 34 weeks of gestation accounts for only less than 3% of total births, it is a critical cause of various perinatal morbidity and mortality. Several studies have been conducted on the association between maternal exposure to PM and PTB, but the results were inconsistent. Moreover, no study has analyzed the risk of PM on PTB among women with cardiovascular diseases, even though those were thought to be highly susceptible to PM considering the cardiovascular effect of PM. Therefore, we aimed to evaluate the effect of PM₁₀ on early PTB according to the period of exposure, using machine learning with data from Korea National Health Insurance Service (KNHI) claims. Furthermore, we conducted subgroup analysis to compare the risk of PM on early PTB among pregnant women with cardiovascular diseases and those without. A total of 149,643 primiparous singleton women aged 25 to 40 years who delivered babies in 2017 were included. Random forest feature importance and SHAP (Shapley additive explanations) value were used to identify the effect of PM₁₀ on early PTB in comparison with other well-known contributing factors of PTB. AUC and accuracy of PTB prediction model using random forest were 0.9988 and 0.9984, respectively. Maternal exposure to PM₁₀ was one of the major predictors of early PTB. PM₁₀ concentration of 5 to 7 months before delivery, the first and early second trimester of pregnancy, ranked high in feature importance. SHAP value showed that higher PM₁₀ concentrations before 5 to 7 months before delivery were associated with an increased risk of early PTB. The probability of early PTB was increased by 7.73%, 10.58%, or 11.11% if a variable PM₁₀ concentration of 5, 6, or 7 months before delivery was included to the prediction model. Furthermore, women with cardiovascular diseases were more susceptible to PM₁₀ concentration in terms of risk for early PTB than those without cardiovascular diseases. Maternal exposure to PM₁₀ has a strong association with early PTB. In addition, in the context of PTB, pregnant women with cardiovascular diseases are a high-risk group of PM₁₀ and the first and early second trimester is a high-risk period of PM₁₀.