Association between atmospheric particulate matter and emergency room visits for cerebrovascular disease in Beijing, China

Bowen Cheng; Jianding Zhou; Yuxia Ma; Yifan Zhang; Hang Wang; Yan Chen; Jiahui Shen; Fengliu Feng

doi:10.1007/s40201-021-00776-w

Association between atmospheric particulate matter and emergency room visits for cerebrovascular disease in Beijing, China

J Environ Health Sci Eng. 2022 Jan 8;20(1):293-303. doi: 10.1007/s40201-021-00776-w. eCollection 2022 Jun.

Authors

Bowen Cheng^#¹, Jianding Zhou^#^{1

2}, Yuxia Ma^#¹, Yifan Zhang¹, Hang Wang¹, Yan Chen¹, Jiahui Shen¹, Fengliu Feng¹

Affiliations

¹ College of Atmospheric Sciences, Key Laboratory of Semi-Arid Climate Change, Ministry of Education, Lanzhou University, Lanzhou, 730000 China.
² Quanzhou Meteorological Bureau, Quanzhou, 362000 China.

^# Contributed equally.

Abstract

Purpose: The association between atmospheric particulate matter and emergency room visits for cerebrovascular disease were evaluated in Beijing.

Methods: A generalized additive model was used to evaluate the associations between particulate matter and cerebrovascular disease, based on the daily data of meteorological elements, PM concentrations, and emergency room (ER) visits for cerebrovascular disease in Beijing from 2009 to 2012. Long-term trends and the effects of holidays, the day of the week, and confounding factors were controlled to determine the lag effect at 0-6 days. Single- and double-pollutant models were employed for different age and sex groups.

Results: The effect of PM_2.5 concentration on the number of daily ER visits for cerebrovascular disease was much stronger than that of PM₁₀ concentration. PM_2.5 and PM₁₀ had maximum RR values of 1.096 and 1.054 at lag 6 for patients aged 61-75 years. For each inter-quartile range (IQR) increase in PM₁₀ concentration, the maximum RR values for the total, males, females, aged 15-60 years, aged 61-75 years, and aged > 75 years were 1.024, 1.044, 1.043, 1.038, 1.054, and 1.032, respectively. For each IQR increase in PM_2.5 concentration, the maximum RR values for the total, males, females, aged 15-60 years, aged 61-75 years, and aged > 75 years were 1.038, 1.064, 1.076, 1.054, 1.096, and 1.049, respectively. The RR values of the double-pollutant models were lower than those of the single-pollutant models.

Conclusion: This study showed that the effects of PM pollution on cerebrovascular disease were different among different gender and age groups, and aged 61-75 years were mostly sensitive to particulate matters. The effects of PM_2.5 on cerebrovascular disease were stronger than those of PM₁₀. Our results can provide scientific evidence for the local government to take effective measures to improve air quality and the health of residents.

Supplementary information: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s40201-021-00776-w.

Keywords: Cerebrovascular disease; Emergency room visits; Particulate matter; Relative risk.