Combined ground level and satellite monitoring of urban air pollution, estimation of the number of patients treated in hospitals due to air pollution and the cost of their treatment - case study of Ruse, Bulgaria

. The city of Ruse has often suffered from air pollutions. The PURPOSE of the study is to estimate both the patients’ number in the hospitals of Ruse district due to air pollution and the cost of their treatment. METHODS. The correlation and regression analyzes were used to study the dependencies between the meteorological parameters and the concentrations of air pollutants (obtained by the combination of ground level and satellite monitoring) and the annual number of patients treated in Ruse district hospitals, separated in clinical pathways. The correlation method was used to detect a link between pollutants and clinical pathway morbidity, and the regression method was used to assess the share of patients due to the air pollution. RESULTS. Statistically significant positive correlations were found between the investigated air pollutants and the annual number of the Ruse patients in 73 of the 125 clinical pathways studied. The pollutant with the greatest impact on health, estimated by the number of patients treated in the hospital, was the methane in the ground level air of Ruse, often in combination with benzene and fine particulate matter. Of the air pollutants over Ruse have been affected 15% of the patients treated on clinical pathways and for their treatment spent 17% of the public funds for hospital treatment in Ruse district.