Air quality and emergency pediatric care for symptoms of bronchial obstruction categorized by age bracket in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

Abstract

The objective of this study was to estimate the association between levels of air pollutants and respiratory symptoms in children. An ecological time-series study was conducted between April 2002 and March 2003 with daily data on PM10, SO2, CO, NO2, and O3 and paediatric care in emergency rooms due to symptoms indicating bronchial obstruction. The potential confounding factors considered were: time trend, seasonality, meteorological variables, respiratory infections and the effects of weekends and holidays. A semi-parametric Poisson regression was used to model the time series. Splines (data smoothing functions), indicator variables and cubic polynomials were used to adjust the effects of the confounding variables. A 5% significance level was adopted for the study. A statistically significant increase of 6.7% in paediatric visits of children of less than 2 years of age was associated with PM10. A 3% positive association with O3 showed borderline significance (p < 0.06) in this age bracket. Our findings highlight the existence of an acknowledged public health problem in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, and also emphasize the need to identify the principal sources of air pollutants.

Air pollutants and hospital admission due to pneumonia in children: a time series analysis

“…But there are few studies conducted in cities located in regions producing sugarcane correlating the effects of straw burning and its impact on population health. 21,22 In the present study, it was found that the distribution of air pollutants has seasonal aspects, and the average levels of these pollutants were below those observed by Braga et al 9 and Bakonyi et al 8 , although higher than those found by Souza et al 19 in a study carried out in Campo Grande, MS, and by Moura et al 20 in Rio de Janeiro. This result is quite interesting since Araraquara is a medium-sized city located in the state of São Paulo.…”

Poluentes ambientais e chance de internações por asma em crianças - São José dos Campos, Brasil, nos anos 2004-2005

“…It was not observed relationship of ozone exposure with decreasing pulmonary function in this cited study 9 . These data reinforce those found by Moura et al, in a study with one year time series including children up to 12 years about the role of PM 10 exposure and visits in emergency rooms in a region of Rio de Janeiro 22 . Unlike Lin et al, it was not possible to identify the role of ozone on asthma hospitalization 23 .…”

A systematic review of the physical and chemical characteristics of pollutants from biomass burning and combustion of fossil fuels and health effects in Brazil

“…Ninety articles (66%) deal with the adverse respiratory effects of air pollution of which 54 (60%) were selected 21,22,23,24,25,26,27,28,29,30,31,32,33,34,35,36,37,38,39,40,41,42,43,44,45,46,47,48,49,50,51,52,53,54,55,56,57,58,59,60,61,62,63,64,65,66,67,68,69,70,71,72,73,…”

“…Several time-series studies were conducted in metropolitan areas to investigate the health effects of air pollution 21,22,23,27,28,31,32,35,36,38,41,42,44,46,49,64,69,74 . Published in 2007, the first studies on the health effects of air pollution in biomass burning areas in the Brazilian Amazon were limited to descriptive studies and focused mainly on asthma 59,61,65,66,72 .…”