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Air pollution and respiratory illness of children in São Paulo, Brazil
Author(s) -
Chin An Lin,
Mílton A. Martins,
Sylvia Costa Lima Farhat,
C. Arden Pope,
Gleice M.S. Conceição,
Veruska Menegatti Anastacio,
Marcelo Hatanaka,
Wagner de Castro Andrade,
W R Hamaue,
György Böhm,
Paulo Hilário Nascimento Saldiva
Publication year - 1999
Publication title -
paediatric and perinatal epidemiology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.667
H-Index - 88
eISSN - 1365-3016
pISSN - 0269-5022
DOI - 10.1046/j.1365-3016.1999.00210.x
Subject(s) - medicine , air pollution , environmental health , respiratory system , respiratory illness , emergency department , pollution , demography , emergency medicine , pediatrics , ecology , chemistry , organic chemistry , psychiatry , sociology , biology
This investigation reports the association between air pollution and paediatric respiratory emergency visits in São Paulo, Brazil, the largest city in South America. Daily records of emergency visits were obtained from the Children’s Institute of the University of São Paulo for the period from May 1991 to April 1993. Visits were classified as respiratory and non‐respiratory causes. Respiratory visits were further divided into three categories: upper respiratory illness, lower respiratory illness and wheezing. Daily records of SO 2 , CO, particulate matter (PM 10 ), O 3 and NO 2 concentrations were obtained from the State Air Pollution Controlling Agency of São Paulo. Associations between respiratory emergency visits and air pollution were assessed by simple comparative statistics, simple correlation analysis and by estimating a variety of regression models. Significant associations between the increase of respiratory emergency visits and air pollution were observed. The most robust associations were observed with PM 10 , and to a lesser extent with O 3 . These associations were stable across different model specifications and several controlling variables. A significant increase in the counts of respiratory emergency visits – more than 20%– was observed on the most polluted days, indicating that air pollution is a substantial paediatric health concern in São Paulo.