The Interactive Effects between Drought and Air Pollutants on Children's Upper Respiratory Tract Infection: A Time-Series Analysis in Gansu, China

Yanlin Li; Jianyun Sun; Ruoyi Lei; Jie Zheng; Xiaoyu Tian; Baode Xue; Bin Luo

doi:10.3390/ijerph20031959

The Interactive Effects between Drought and Air Pollutants on Children's Upper Respiratory Tract Infection: A Time-Series Analysis in Gansu, China

Int J Environ Res Public Health. 2023 Jan 20;20(3):1959. doi: 10.3390/ijerph20031959.

Authors

Yanlin Li¹, Jianyun Sun², Ruoyi Lei¹, Jie Zheng¹, Xiaoyu Tian¹, Baode Xue¹, Bin Luo^{1

3

4}

Affiliations

¹ Institute of Occupational Health and Environmental Health, School of Public Health, Lanzhou University, Lanzhou 730000, China.
² Gansu Provincial Centre for Diseases Prevention and Control, Lanzhou 730000, China.
³ Shanghai Key Laboratory of Meteorology and Health, Shanghai Meteorological Bureau, Shanghai 200030, China.
⁴ Shanghai Typhoon Institute, China Meteorological Administration, Shanghai 200030, China.

Abstract

As a destructive and economic disaster in the world, drought shows an increasing trend under the continuous global climate change and adverse health effects have been reported. The interactive effects between drought and air pollutants, which may also be harmful to respiratory systems, remain to be discussed. We built the generalized additive model (GAM) and distributed lag nonlinear model (DLNM) to estimate the effects of drought and air pollutants on daily upper respiratory infections (URTI) outpatient visits among children under 6 in three cities of Gansu province. The Standardized Precipitation Index (SPI) based on monthly precipitation (SPI-1) was used as an indicator of drought. A non-stratified model was established to explore the interaction effect of SPI-1 and air pollutants. We illustrated the number of daily pediatric URTI outpatient visits increased with the decrease in SPI-1. The interactive effects between air pollutants and the number of daily pediatric URTIs were significant. According to the non-stratified model, we revealed highly polluted and drought environments had the most significant impact on URTI in children. The occurrence of drought and air pollutants increased URTI in children and exhibited a significant interactive effect.

Keywords: DLNM; GAM; SPI; URTI; air pollutants; drought.

Publication types

Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

Air Pollutants* / analysis
Air Pollution* / analysis
Child
China / epidemiology
Droughts
Humans
Particulate Matter / analysis
Respiratory Tract Infections* / chemically induced
Respiratory Tract Infections* / epidemiology

Substances

Air Pollutants
Particulate Matter

Grants and funding

This work was supported by the Gansu Province Young Doctoral Fund Project (Grant number: 2021QB-005) and the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities, Lanzhou University, China (Grant number: lzujbky-2021-ey07).