Association between climate variables, pollutants, aerosols and hospitalizations due to asthma

Abstract

Many studies have shown that climatic and pollutant variables are directly related to the increase of hospitalizations due to respiratory diseases, mainly asthma. The aim of this study was to estimate the association between exposure to climate variables, pollutants, aerosols and hospitalizations due to asthma. This ecological study used time series with daily asthma hospitalization indicators, and concentrations of pollutants, climate data and aerosols, between January 2013 and December 2013. A generalized additive model using Poisson regression was used to estimate the relative risk with a two-day lag after exposure; the unipollutant model was adjusted by the apparent temperature, a measure defined from the temperature and relative humidity of the air, and a variable was added to control the seasonality and the day of the week. As a result, the values of relative risks (RR) for hospitalizations due to asthma were: for minimum temperature RR= 0.8985; maximum humidity RR= 0.9819; wind speed RR= 0.9419; rain RR= 0.9834; ozone RR= 0.9735; aerosols (AOT) RR= 1.0078; clearness index (Kt) RR= 0.0492 and carbon monoxide RR= 1.0865 for a two-day lag. After considering the aforementioned factors, we found the values of B coefficients. Exposure to climatic variables, pollutants, aerosols and clearness index was associated with hospitalizations due to asthma, and provided subsidies for the implementation of preventive measures to decrease these outcomes.

Keywords

• hospitalização. asma. poluentes ambientais. atmosfera.