The effects of air pollution on cardiovascular diseases: lag structures

Abstract

OBJECTIVE:To assess the lag structure between air pollution exposure and elderly cardiovascular diseases hospital admissions, by gender. METHODS:Health data of people aged 64 years or older was stratified by gender in São Paulo city, Southeastern Brazil, from 1996 to 2001. Daily levels of air pollutants (CO, PM 10 , O 3 , NO 2 , and SO 2 ) , minimum temperature, and relative humidity were also analyzed. It were fitted generalized additive Poisson regressions and used constrained distributed lag models adjusted for long time trend, weekdays, weather and holidays to assess the lagged effects of air pollutants on hospital admissions up to 20 days after exposure. RESULTS:Interquartile range increases in PM 10 (26.21 µg/m 3 ) and SO 2 (10.73 µg/m 3 ) were associated with 3.17% (95% CI: 2.09-4.25) increase in congestive heart failure and 0.89% (95% CI: 0.18-1.61) increase in total cardiovascular diseases at lag 0, respectively. Effects were higher among female group for most of the analyzed outcomes. Effects of air pollutants for different outcomes and gender groups were predominately acute and some "harvesting" were found. CONCLUSIONS:The results show that cardiovascular diseases in São Paulo are strongly affected by air pollution. KEYWORDS

Seasonal variation in hospitalizations due to heart failure in Niterói city, Southeastern Brazil

“…Secondly, the study population was younger than in studies in the Northern Hemisphere. 1 Some of them found seasonality was more evident in elderly people 1,3 which was not corroborated in the present study, probably due to less marked seasonal climate changes.…”

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Effect of air pollution on diabetes and cardiovascular diseases in São Paulo, Brazil

“…CO has also been associated with admissions for cardiovascular events (16)(17)(18)(19). Martins and colleagues (20) showed a significant association between elderly patient hospital admissions due to cardiovascular diseases and SO 2 in São Paulo, Brazil. This effect varied in degree by gender, being greater in females.…”

The relationship between low birth weight and exposure to inhalable particulate matter

“…http://www.ibge.gov.br, accessed on 20/Dec/2012) and covers an area of 175km 2 . The city is a highly industrial area and has a large fleet of light and heavy motor vehicles.…”

“…Motor vehicles are a major source of air pollution in urban areas. However, it is important to emphasize that in certain regions of the world biomass burning is also an important source of air pollution that causes adverse health effects 1,2 .…”