Title
The association between asthma emergency department visits and satellite-derived PM2.5 in Lima, Peru
Date Issued
01 August 2021
Access level
open access
Resource Type
journal article
Author(s)
Vu B.N.
Ebelt S.
Liu Y.
Steenland K.
Publisher(s)
Academic Press Inc.
Abstract
Background: Asthma affects millions of people worldwide. Lima, Peru is one of the most polluted cities in the Americas but has insufficient ground PM2.5 (particulate matter that are 2.5 μm or less in diameter) measurements to conduct epidemiologic studies regarding air pollution. PM2.5 estimates from a satellite-driven model have recently been made, enabling a study between asthma and PM2.5. Objective: We conducted a daily time-series analysis to determine the association between asthma emergency department (ED) visits and estimated ambient PM2.5 levels in Lima, Peru from 2010 to 2016. Methods: We used Poisson generalized linear models to regress aggregated counts of asthma on district-level population weighted PM2.5. Indicator variables for hospitals, districts, and day of week were included to account for spatial and temporal autocorrelation while assessing same day, previous day, day before previous and average across all 3-day exposures. We also included temperature and humidity to account for meteorology and used dichotomous percent poverty and gender variables to assess effect modification. Results: There were 103,974 cases of asthma ED visits during the study period across 39 districts in Lima. We found a 3.7% (95% CI: 1.7%–5.8%) increase in ED visits for every interquartile range (IQR, 6.02 μg/m3) increase in PM2.5 same day exposure with no age stratification. For the 0–18 years age group, we found a 4.5% (95% CI: 2.2%–6.8%) increase in ED visits for every IQR increase in PM2.5 same day exposure. For the 19–64 years age group, we found a 6.0% (95% CI: 1.0%–11.0%) increase in ED visits for every IQR in average 3-day exposure. For the 65 years and up age group, we found a 16.0% (95% CI: 7.0%–24.0%) decrease in ED visits for every IQR increase in PM2.5 average 3-day exposure, although the number of visits in this age group was low (4,488). We found no effect modification by SES or gender. Discussion: Results from this study provide additional literature on use of satellite-driven exposure estimates in time-series analyses and evidence for the association between PM2.5 and asthma in a low- and middle-income (LMIC) country.
Volume
199
Language
English
OCDE Knowledge area
Salud pública, Salud ambiental
Sistema respiratorio
Subjects
Scopus EID
2-s2.0-85105811745
PubMed ID
Source
Environmental Research
ISSN of the container
00139351
Sponsor(s)
Research reported in this publication was supported by the NIH Fogarty International Center , National Institutes of Environmental Health Sciences , National Cancer Institute , Centers for Disease Control and the NIH under Award Number U01 TW0101 07 and 5T32ES12870 . The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the National Institutes of Health. The work of Vu and Liu were partially supported by NASA Applied Science Program (Grant # 80NSSC19K0191 and # NNX16AQ28G ). This research was also supported by the HERCULES Center Pilot Project Program.
Sources of information:
Directorio de Producción Científica
Scopus