A Synoptic Evaluation of Asthma Hospital Admissions in New York City

Abstract

An evaluation of weather/asthma relationships in the New York City Standard Metropolitan Statistical Area (SMSA) is developed using a synoptic climatological methodology. This procedure isolates "air masses," or bodies of air that are homogeneous in meteorological character, and relates them to daily counts of overnight asthma hospital admissions. The synoptic procedure used here, known as the temporal synoptic index (TSI), can identify air masses in automated fashion for every day over many years. It is apparent that certain air masses are related to statistically significant increases in asthma hospital admissions. The impact varies seasonally, with weather having a particularly important impact on asthma admissions during fall and winter. It appears that air pollution has little impact on asthma during these two seasons, and the air masses associated with the highest admissions are not distinguished by high concentrations of pollutants. However, during spring and summer, the air masses associated with highest admissions are among those with high pollution concentrations. There is a strong interseasonal differential response to weather and air pollution by asthmatics in New York City. If these results can be replicated at other locations in future studies, it may be possible to develop an asthma/weather watch-warning system, based on the expected arrival of high-admissions air masses.

Climate change, extreme weather events, air pollution and respiratory health in Europe

“…specific variables such as humidity and rainfall, but also combinations of several meteorological variables (i.e. temperature, humidity, visibility, cloud cover, air pressure and wind speed) defined as ''synoptic air masses'', have been associated with increases in mortality and morbidity but specific evidence for respiratory causes is scarce and there is no clear evidence that these variables may have an independent effect apart from temperature [46][47][48][49][50][51][52].…”

Respiratory Tract Viral Infections in Inner-City Asthmatic Adults

“…2,3 Residents of the inner city are at increased risk for asthma-related hos- pitalization and mortality. 2,45 Potential reasons for the increased risk in this population include increased exposure to allergens such as mites and cockroaches, 46,47 decreased access to or underuse of medical care, 48,49 poor air quality, 50,51 psychosocial problems, 52,53 exposure to cigarette smoke, 54,55 and crowding. 4 Race and ethnicity appear to be a less significant risk factor than socioeconomic status.…”

Winter circulation weather types and hospital admissions for respiratory diseases in Galicia, Spain

“…A previous study by (McGregor et al 1999) concluded that certain air masses (cold and maritime air) can even be indicators of a lower number of admissions for respiratory pathologies because their features favoured the reduction of air pollutants. In another study by (Jamason et al 1997), the high variability of the number of patients seeking emergency treatment for asthma problems is associated with synoptic situations in autumn that favour the arrival of cold, dry air masses. Respiratory pathologies are some of the most significant causes of morbi-mortality on a global scale (Prüss-Üstün and Corvalán 2006).…”

“…The difficulty therefore lies in the attempt to reduce the huge variety of conditioning factors to just a few relevant or dominant factors (Jendritzky 1993). One of the most commonly used methods to resolve this difficulty is to use the synoptic climatological approach (McGregor et al 1999;Jamason et al 1997). This enables all the atmospheric elements and factors to be included in a single indicator (Pablo et al 2009;Kalkstein 1991).…”