Retraction note: Association between exposure to particulate matter during pregnancy and birthweight: a systematic review and a meta-analysis of birth cohort studies

On January 28, 2019, Journal of Biomedical Research published the Original Article “Association between exposure to particulate matter during pregnancy and birthweight: a systematic review and a meta-analysis of birth cohort studies” (DOI: 10.7555/JBR.31.20170038). On May 15, 2020, a member of the Committee on the Medical Effects of Air Pollutants (COMEAP) Subgroup on Adverse Birth Outcomes identified inaccuracies in this manuscript, noting that the authors did not convert the original risk estimates into a comparable scale before performing the meta-analysis. In response to this comment, the authors initiated an internal verification procedure and found an incorrect selection of statistical methods used in the article, which indeed resulted in inaccurate results in the meta-analysis. As a result, the first author has decided to retract this paper on behalf of all authors and the results will be re-analyzed and updated. The authors thank the members of the COMEAP Subgroup on Adverse Birth Outcomes for pointing out the errors.