Association Between Air Pollutants and Pediatric Respiratory Outpatient Visits in Zhoushan, China

Abstract

ObjectiveThis study aimed to explore the time-series relationship between air pollutants and the number of children's respiratory outpatient visits in coastal cities.MethodsWe used time series analysis to investigate the association between air pollution levels and pediatric respiratory outpatient visits in Zhoushan city, China. The population was selected from children aged 0–18 who had been in pediatric respiratory clinics for eight consecutive years from 2014 to 2020. After describing the population and weather characteristics, a lag model was used to explore the relationship between outpatient visits and air pollution.ResultsWe recorded annual outpatient visits for different respiratory diseases in children. The best synergy lag model found a 10 μg/m3 increase in PM2.5 for every 4–10% increase in the number of pediatric respiratory outpatient visits (P < 0.05). The cumulative effect of an increase in the number of daily pediatric respiratory clinics with a lag of 1–7 days was the best model.ConclusionsPM2.5 is significantly related to the number of respiratory outpatient visits of children, which can aid in formulating policies for health resource allocation and health risk assessment strategies.

Association of Air Pollution with the Number of Common Respiratory Visits in Children in a Heavily Polluted Central City, China

“…The GAM, which is based on a Poisson distribution, was used to analyze the effect of air pollutants on the number of pediatric respiratory visits. Temperature, relative humidity, long-term trends over time, and the "day of the week" effect were included in the model, taking into account studies [34,36] on air pollution and human health. Consideration of these variables, which could affect either the number of visits or the concentration of air pollutants, resulted in a more accurate correlation between the number of respiratory visits in children and the concentration of air pollutants.…”

“…Currently, studies on how air pollution affects the incidence of respiratory disease patient visits are sufficient [27][28][29][30][31], but most studies have focused on the overall prevalence of respiratory diseases in children [32][33][34][35][36]. Fewer studies have explored the relationship between the number of different respiratory disease visits in children and the concentration of air pollutants.…”