Ambient air pollution in urban areas may trigger asthma exacerbations. We carried out a time-series analysis of the association between the concentrations of various air pollutants and the risk of hospital admission due to asthma over 7 days from exposure. We used distributed lag nonlinear models to analyze data gathered between 2010 and 2018 in the three largest urban agglomerations in Poland. Overall, there were 31,919 asthma hospitalizations. Over 7 days since exposure, the rate ratio (95%CI) for admission per 10 µg/m3 was 1.013 (1.002–1.024) for PM10; 1.014 (1.000–1.028) for PM2.5; 1.054 (1.031–1.078) for NO2; and 1.044 for SO2 (95%CI: 0.986–1.104). For all pollutants, the risk of admission was the greatest on the day of exposure (day 0), decreased below baseline on days 1 and 2, and then increased gradually up to day 6. The proportions (95%CI) of hospitalizations attributable to air pollution were 4.52% (0.80%–8.14%) for PM10; 3.74% (0.29%–7.11%) for PM2.5; 16.4% (10.0%–21.8%) for NO2; and 2.50% (−0.75%–5.36%) for SO2. In conclusion, PM2.5, PM10, NO2, and SO2 pollution was associated with an increased risk of hospital admission due to asthma in the three largest urban agglomerations in Poland over nine years.
What's new?Growing evidence from studies across the world has attributed substantial disease burden to air pollution. Gaseous and particulate air pollution in Poland is an important public health problem, but the disease burden related to air pollution is largely unknown. In Poland, there is a lack of long-term, multi-city studies linking air pollution to objective healthcare measures.People with chronic lung diseases, such as chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), are most susceptible to ambient air pollution. In this study, we analyzed data from Warsaw, Cracow, and the Tricity for the period from 2011 to 2018 to see how changes in the concentrations of various air pollutants were associated with changes in the number of hospitalizations due to COPD exacerbations. We found that exposure to both particulate and gaseous pollutants significantly increased the hospitalization risk, with a substantial proportion of hospitalizations attributable to air pollution.
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