Ambient particulate matter pollution and adult hospital admissions for pneumonia in urban China: A national time series analysis for 2014 through 2017

by Yaohua Tian, Hui Liu, Yiqun Wu, Yaqin Si, Man Li, Yao Wu, Xiaowen Wang, Mengying Wang, Libo Chen, Chen Wei, Tao Wu, Pei Gao, Yonghua Hu BackgroundThe effects of ambient particulate matter (PM) pollution on pneumonia in adults are inconclusive, and few scientific data on a national scale have been generated in low- or middle-income countries, despite their much higher PM concentrations. We aimed to examine the association between PM levels and hospital admissions for pneumonia in Chinese adults. Methods and findingsA nationwide time series study was conducted in China between 2014 and 2017. Information on daily hospital admissions for pneumonia for 2014 –2017 was collected from the database of Urban Employee Basic Medical Insurance (UEBMI), which covers 282.93 million adults. Associations of PM concentrations and hospital admissions for pneumonia were estimated for each city using a quasi-Poisson regression model controlling for time trend, tempe rature, relative humidity, day of the week, and public holiday and then pooled by random-effects meta-analysis. Meta-regression models were used to investigate potential effect modifiers, including cities’ annual-average air pollutants concentrations, temperature, relative humidity, gross domestic product (GDP) per capita, and coverage rates by the UEBMI. More than 4.2 million pneumonia admissions were identified in 184 Chinese cities during the study period. Short-term elevations in PM concentrations were associated with incre...
Source: PLoS Medicine - Category: Internal Medicine Authors: Source Type: research