Background: The problems of air pollution became noticeable in Cartagena in the seventies, high SO2 and particle levels having been reached from time to time. Our aim is to assess, using the EMECAM methodology, the acute impact of SO2 and particle air pollution on the daily death rate of the city of Cartagena in the 1992-1996 period.
Methods: A daily listing is provided of the total number of non-accidental deaths within the population as a whole and for those over age 70, the cardiovascular and the respiratory deaths due to dioxide and particle air pollution for the 1992-1996 period using autoregressive Poisson models which control seasonality, weather, time of year, flu, special events, and time lags.
Results: In the period under study, there has been a drop in the SO2 air pollution as compared to previous years, which was not as marked for the particles. The analyses reveal significant relationships in the total non-accidental deaths in those over age 69, with the average particle count and those particles with cardiovascular deaths for the months of May to October. In the six-month period of the year, when the weather is cold, we found a positive statistically significant relationship to exist in the maximum daily hourly value of the particles and the deaths due to cardiocirculatory and respiratory diseases. However, there is no consistency in the between on assessing the reliability of the models.