Skip to main content
Key Specialties
Cardiology Diabetology Endocrinology Gastroenterology Geriatrics and Gerontology Gynecology and Obstetrics Hematology Infectious Disease Internal Medicine Nephrology Neurology Oncology Pediatrics Respiratory Medicine Rheumatology Surgery
Congress Coverage
2024 ACC Congress 2023 ESMO Congress 2023 EASD Congress 2023 ERS Congress 2023 ESC Congress
Clinical Collections
Advances in Alzheimer’s

Keynote webinar | Spotlight on medication adherence

LIVE: Thursday 27th June 2024, 18:00-19:30 (CEST)
Join our expert panel to discover why you need to understand the drivers of non-adherence in your patients, and how you can optimize medication adherence in your clinics to drastically improve patient outcomes.
ADVANCED SEARCH
Log in
Top
International Archives of Occupational and Environmental Health
Published in: International Archives of Occupational and Environmental Health 8/2008

01-08-2008 | Original Article

Air pollution and ED visits for asthma in Australian children: a case-crossover analysis

Authors: Bin Jalaludin, Behnoosh Khalaj, Vicky Sheppeard, Geoff Morgan

Published in: International Archives of Occupational and Environmental Health | Issue 8/2008

Login to get access

Abstract

Objective

We aimed to determine the effects of ambient air pollutants on emergency department (ED) visits for asthma in children.

Methods

We obtained routinely collected ED visit data for asthma (ICD9 493) and air pollution (PM10, PM2.5, O3, NO2, CO and SO2) and meteorological data for metropolitan Sydney for 1997–2001. We used the time stratified case-crossover design and conditional logistic regression to model the association between air pollutants and ED visits for four age-groups (1–4, 5–9, 10–14 and 1–14 years). Estimated relative risks for asthma ED visits were calculated for an exposure corresponding to the inter-quartile range in pollutant level. We included same day average temperature, same day relative humidity, daily temperature range, school holidays and public holidays in all models.

Results

Associations between ambient air pollutants and ED visits for asthma in children were most consistent for all six air pollutants in the 1–4 years age-group, for particulates and CO in the 5–9 years age-group and for CO in the 10–14 years age-group. The greatest effects were most consistently observed for lag 0 and effects were greater in the warm months for particulates, O3 and NO2. In two pollutant models, effect sizes were generally smaller compared to those derived from single pollutant models.

Conclusion

We observed the effects of ambient air pollutants on ED attendances for asthma in a city where the ambient concentrations of air pollutants are relatively low.
Literature
Barnett AG, Williams GM, Schwartz J, Neller AH, Best TL et al (2005) Air pollution and child respiratory health. A case-crossover study in Australia and New Zealand. Am J Respir Crit Care Med 171:1272–1278PubMedCrossRef
Castellsague J, Sunyer J, Saez M, Anto JM (1995) Short-term association between air pollution and emergency room visits for asthma in Barcelona. Thorax 50:1051–1056PubMed
Dales RE, Cakmak S, Burnett RT, Judek S, Coates F, Brook JR (2000) Influence of ambient fungal spores on emergency visits for asthma to a regional children’s hospital. Am J Respir Crit Care Med 162:2087–2090PubMed
Fauroux B, Sampil M, Quenel P, Lemoullec Y (2000) Ozone: a trigger for hospital pediatric asthma emergency room visits. Pediatr Pulmonol 30:41–46PubMedCrossRef
Jaakkola JJK (2003) Case-crossover design in air pollution epidemiology. Eur Respir J 21:81s–85sCrossRef
Jalaludin B, Chey T, Holmwood M, Chipps J, Hanson R et al (1998) Admission rates as an indicator of the prevalence of severe asthma in the community. Aust NZ J Public Health 22:214–219CrossRef
Jalaludin B, Morgan G, Lincoln D, Sheppeard V, Simpson R, Corbett S (2005) Associations between ambient air pollution and daily emergency department attendances for cardiovascular disease in the elderly (65+ years), Sydney, Australia. J Expo Anal Environ Epidemiol 16:225–237
Janes H, Sheppard L, Lumley T (2004) Assessing the health effects of air pollution using the case-crossover design. UW biostatistics working paper series. vol. 214
Levy D, Lumley T, Sheppard L, Kaufman J, Checkoway H (2001) Referent selection in case-crossover analyses of acute health effects of air pollution. Epidemiology 12:186–192PubMedCrossRef
Lumley T, Levy D (2000) Bias in the case-crossover design: implications for studies of air pollution. Environmetrics 11:689–704CrossRef
Morgan G, Corbett S, Wlodarczyk J (1998a) Air pollution and hospital admissions in Sydney, Australia, 1990 to 1994. Am J Public Health 88:1761–1766PubMed
Morgan G, Corbett S, Wlodarczyk J, Lewis P (1998b) Air pollution and daily mortality in Sydney, Australia, 1989 through 1993. Am J Public Health 88:759–764PubMed
NEPC (2005) Preliminary work on ozone for the review of the ambient air quality NEPM. Issues paper. NEPC Service Corporation, Adelaide
Norris G, Young Pong SN, Koenig JQ, Larson TV, Sheppard L, Stout JW (1999) An association between fine particles and asthma emergency department visits for children in Seattle. Environ Health Perspectives 107:489–493CrossRef
Peat JK, van den Berg RH, Green WF, Mellis CM, Leeder SR, Woolcock AJ (1994) Changing prevalence of asthma in Australian children (see comments). BMJ 308:1591–1596PubMed
Peel JL, Tolbert PE, Klein M, Metzger KB, Flanders WD et al (2005) Ambient air pollution and respiratory emergency department visits. Epidemiology 16:164–174PubMedCrossRef
Ponce de Leon A, Anderson HR, Bland JM, Strachan DP, Bower J (1996) Effects of air pollution on daily hospital admissions for respiratory disease in London between 1987–88 and 1991–92. J Epidemiol Community Health 50(Suppl 1):s63–s70CrossRef
Pope CA III, Burnett RT, Thun MJ, Calle EE, Krewski D et al (2002) Lung cancer, cardiopulmonary mortality, and long-term exposure to fine particulate air pollution. JAMA 287:1132–1141PubMedCrossRef
Rennick GJ, Jarman FC (1992) Are children with asthma affected by smog? Med J Aust 156:837–841PubMed
Robertson CF, Heycock E, Bishop J, Nolan T, Olinsky A, Phelan PD (1991) Prevalence of asthma in Melbourne schoolchildren: changes over 26 years [see comments]. BMJ 302:1116–1118PubMed
Roche P, Halliday L, O’Brien E, Spencer J (2002) The laboratory virology and serology reporting scheme, 1991 to 2000 communicable diseases intelligence 26:323–374
Romieu I, Meneses F, Sienra-Monge JJ, Huerta J, Ruiz VS et al (1995) Effects of urban air pollutants on emergency visits for childhood asthma in Mexico City. Am J Epidemiol 141:546–553PubMed
Samet JM, Dominici F, Curriero FC, Coursac I, Zeger SL (2000) Fine particulate air pollution and mortality in 20 US cities, 1987–1994 [see comments]. N Eng J Med 343:1742–1749CrossRef
Schwartz J (1999) Air pollution and hospital admissions for heart disease in eight US counties [see comments]. Epidemiology 10:17–22PubMedCrossRef
Schwartz J, Slater D, Larson TV, Pierson WE, Koenig JQ (1993) Particulate air pollution and hospital emergency room visits for asthma in Seattle. Am Rev Respir Dis 147:826–831PubMed
Simpson R, Williams G, Petroeschevsky A, Best T, Morgan G et al (2005a) The short-term effects of air pollution on daily mortality in four Australian cities. Aust NZ J Public Health 29:205–212CrossRef
Simpson R, Williams G, Petroeschevsky A, Best T, Morgan G et al (2005b) The short-term effects of air pollution on hospital admissions in four Australian cities Australian and New Zealand. J Public Health 29:213–221
Spix C, Anderson HR, Schwartz J, Vigotti MA, LeTertre A et al (1998) Short-term effects of air pollution on hospital admissions of respiratory diseases in Europe: a quantitative summary of APHEA study results. Air pollution and health: a European approach. Arch Environ Health 53:54–64PubMed
Stieb DM, Burnett RT, Beveridge RC, Brook JR (1996) Association between ozone and asthma emergency department visits in Saint John, New Brunswick, Canada. Environ Health Perspectives 104:1354–1360CrossRef
Stieb DM, Beveridge RC, Rowe BH, Walter SD, Judek S (1998) Assessing diagnostic classification in an emergency department: implications for daily time series studies of air pollution. Am J Epidemiol 148:666–670PubMedCrossRef
Tenias JM, Ballester F, Rivera ML (1998) Association between hospital emergency visits for asthma and air pollution in Valencia, Spain. Occup Environ Med 55:541–7PubMed
Metadata
Title
Air pollution and ED visits for asthma in Australian children: a case-crossover analysis
Authors
Bin Jalaludin
Behnoosh Khalaj
Vicky Sheppeard
Geoff Morgan
Publication date
01-08-2008
Publisher
Springer-Verlag
Published in
International Archives of Occupational and Environmental Health / Issue 8/2008
Print ISSN: 0340-0131
Electronic ISSN: 1432-1246
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1007/s00420-007-0290-0

Other articles of this Issue 8/2008

International Archives of Occupational and Environmental Health 8/2008 Go to the issue

Original Article

Dose–response relationships between occupational exposure to potash, diesel exhaust and nitrogen oxides and lung function: cross-sectional and longitudinal study in two salt mines

Original Article

Prevalence of skin and back diseases in geriatric care nurses

Original Article

Saliva as an analytical tool to measure occupational exposure to toluene

Original Article

Retrospective exposure assessment for respirable and inhalable dust, crystalline silica and arsenic in the former German uranium mines of SAG/SDAG Wismut

Original Article

Tertiary individual prevention of occupational skin diseases: a decade’s experience with recalcitrant occupational dermatitis

Original Article

Gender differences in workers with identical repetitive industrial tasks: exposure and musculoskeletal disorders