Effect of Air Pollution on Daily Hospital Admissions for Respiratory Diseases in Kaohsiung City, 1997-2001

• Main Authors: Rung-nan Hsu, 徐榮男
• Other Authors: Jeng Chung Chen
• Format: Others
• Language: zh-TW
• Published: 2004
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/64zpbu

碩士 === 輔英科技大學 === 環境工程衛生系碩士班 === 92 === 　　The purpose of this study was to examine the correlations between concentrations of five air pollutants and daily hospital admissions. And then, using the relationship to develop an index for reporting the level of air pollution. Method: Air pollution data were obtained from seven air-monitoring stations administrated by Taiwan EPA. Monitored pollutants include particulate matter less than10mm in aerodynamic diameter (PM10), sulphur dioxide (SO2), nitrogen dioxide (NO2), ozone (O3), and carbon monoxide(CO). Meteorology data were obtained from Kaohsiung meteorological station that included temperature, relative humidity, and atmospheric pressure. The data regarding respiratory diseases hospital admissions were obtained from the National Health Research Institute (NHRI). The diseases that were considered in this study were acute bronchitis and bronchiolitis, bronchitis, not specified as acute or chronic, chronic bronchiolitis, emphysema and asthma. Analysis was based on the data taken from 1997 to the end of 2001. In this study, multiple regression models are used to express the daily clinic visits for respiratory disease as function of air quality and weather variables. Seasonal variations, month variations, weekday and meteorological factor (temperature, relative humidity, atmospheric pressure) were controlled to adjust the effect on the number of hospital admissions. 　　The results showed that air quality (concentrations of monitored five pollutants) in Kaohsiung city is improved on the yearly basis except ozone. But sulphur dioxide and carbon monoxide from 2000 years the concentrations to increase. The single pollutant model showed that different pollutant had different level of performance on the respiratory diseases in terms of time lag effect. The effect of concentration of ozone on respiratory diseases is best explained by two-day time in advance. All the rests pollutants on respiratory diseases are best fitted for the same day. In multiple pollutants model, due to high linear dependence among pollutants consequently multicollinearity, the ability of the model to explain the variation of hospital admissions due to variation of concentration of five pollutants decreased. Finally, we use the verified model to develop the air quality index. The new air quality index will compare with the current PSI to examine the ability to explain the variation of criterion variable. 　　The effect of NO2 on the daily respiratory hospital admission is the most significant factor among all five pollutants. On the other hand, ozone has the least effect. The ability of the new developed air pollution index can explain the variation of hospital admissions by 26.7%, which is better than the current PSI (4.5%).