The association between upper airway symptoms in elementary students in Taipei and traffic density near school

• Main Authors: Chun-Chi Lin, 林純吉
• Other Authors: Mei-Lien Chen
• Format: Others
• Language: zh-TW
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/7pbuwh

碩士 === 國立陽明大學 === 環境與職業衛生研究所 === 97 === There is strong evidence from epidemiological, animal and human studies that air pollution not only contributes to direct injury of respiratory tract but also aggravates allergic disease indirectly. Children are a vulnerable group suffering from air pollution. The purpose of this study was to examine the association between respiratory health in elementary students in Taipei and traffic density near school. Traffic density of elementary school was categorized into high, medium and low and the study of heath effect had two parts. Part one was a cross-sectional study which investigates the difference of allergic disease (asthma, allergic rhinitis, atopic dermatitis) among different traffic density. Part two was a case-control study to explore the difference of upper airway symptoms in asthma and non-asthma children among different traffic density. It included ten elementary schools in Taipei, involving 4,952 students, in the cross-sectional studies. The result showed childhood allergic disease has been in increasing trend in Taipei. Compared to parents’ generation, proportion of physician -diagnosed asthma increased from 6.9% to 14.9%. Proportion of physician-diagnosed allergic rhinitis and atopic dermatitis was 55.2% and 21.3% respectively. After adjusting for confounding factors, traffic density near school was not a risk factor of physician-diagnosed asthma. Gender (aOR 1.7), self-reported air pollution severity (aOR 1.4), father asthma history (aOR 4.8) and mother asthma history (aOR 2.6) were significantly associated with physician-diagnosed asthma. The proportion of asthma attack had seasonal change, highest in winter, and had increasing tendency in high traffic density group. Results of case-control study showed children with asthma had higher incidence and severity of upper airway symptoms than those without asthma. In case group (children with asthma), the area with low traffic density had the highest incidence and severity of upper airway symptoms. On the contrary, the highest incidence and severity occurred in area with high density in control group (children without asthma) In conclusion, these results disclosed there was no significant association between traffic density near school and prevalence of allergic diseases of elementary students in Taipei, and traffic density near school was inconsistent with the incidence and severity of upper airway symptoms. It needs further investigations to elucidate the effects of other confounding factors.