Effect of ambient air pollution on emergency room admissions for respiratory diseases in Beijing, China

Ambient air pollution is considered as one of the greatest environmental risk factors to public health due to its correlation with the onset of respiratory and cardiovascular diseases. Beijing, the capital of China, is one of the most severely haze-polluted metropolis in the world; the entire city faces air pollution-related heath risks on a frequent basis. The goal of this study is to evaluate the short-term effect of ambient air pollution on emergency room (ER) admissions for respiratory disesases in Beijing, China. We used a generalized additive model to study a total of 274,627 ER admission cases for respiratory diseases from 2009 to 2012. We analyzed the correlations between three major ambient air pollutants (including PM10, SO2, and NO2) and the ER admissions for different age and gender subgroups. The results showed that: a) the effects of PM10 and SO2 are stronger in males than in females and in the elders (age >= 65years) than younger people; b) the effect of NO2 is stronger in children (age <= 15years) than older people; c) for per 10 mu g/m(3) increase in ambient PM10, SO2, and NO2 concentration, the greatest increase persentage (IP) of ER admissions was 2.8% (95% CI: 2.3-3.4%), 3.6% (95% CI: 1.4-5.8%), and 7.7% (95% CI:7.0-8.4%), respectively; d) increases in the three major ambient air pollutant concentrations affected ER admissions for respiratory diseases the most at lag 0-1 day. In particular, the elderly and females were relatively more sensitive to the three outdoor air pollutants, and were affected right away after the air pollutant concentration went up.