Air pollution exposure may increase the demand for emergency healthcare services, particularly in South-East Asia, where the burden of air-pollution-related health impacts is high. This article aims to investigate the association between air quality and emergency hospital admissions in Singapore. Quasi-Poisson regression was applied with a distributed lag non-linear model (DLNM) to assess the short-term associations between air quality variations and all-cause, emergency admissions from a major hospital in Singapore, between 2009 and 2017. Higher concentrations of SO2, PM2.5, PM10, NO2, and CO were positively associated with an increased risk of (i) all-cause, (ii) cardiovascular-related, and (iii) respiratory-related emergency admissions over 7 days. O3 concentration increases were associated with a non-linear decrease in emergency admissions. Females experienced a higher risk of emergency admissions associated with PM2.5, PM10, and CO exposure, and a lower risk of admissions with NO2 exposure, compared to males. The older adults (≥65 years) experienced a higher risk of emergency admissions associated with SO2 and O3 exposure compared to the non-elderly group. We found significant positive associations between respiratory disease- and cardiovascular disease-related emergency hospital admissions and ambient SO2, PM2.5, PM10, NO2, and CO concentrations. Age and gender were identified as effect modifiers of all-cause admissions.
Keywords: admission; air pollution; air quality; emergency department; environmental epidemiology; haze.