Outdoor fine and coarse particles and hospital admissions for cardiovascular diseases: a large-scale case-crossover study

• Published in: Air quality, atmosphere and health Vol. 15; no. 9; pp. 1679 - 1693
• Main Authors: Karbakhsh, Mojgan, Mansourian, Marjan, Taheri, Marzieh, Rabiei, Katayoun, Hosseini, Sayed Mohsen, Rahimi, Mojtaba, Sadeghian, Babak, Chan, Sammy, Sarrafzadegan, Nizal, Brauer, Michael
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Dordrecht Springer Netherlands 01-09-2022; Springer Nature B.V
• Subjects: Air pollution; Atmospheric Protection/Air Quality Control/Air Pollution; Autumn; Cardiac arrhythmia; Cardiovascular disease; Cardiovascular diseases; Dew point; Earth and Environmental Science; Environment; Environmental Health; Health Promotion and Disease Prevention; Heart failure; Hospitalization; Hospitals; Hypertension; Mortality; Outdoor air quality; Particulate emissions; Particulate matter; Patient admissions; Pollutants; Population; Population studies; Seasonal variability; Seasonal variations; Sulfur dioxide; Wind speed; Air pollution cardiovascular disease; Particulate matter
• ISSN: 1873-9318; 1873-9326
• DOI: 10.1007/s11869-022-01212-0

Despite high levels of air pollution in the Middle East, there are relatively few studies of its impacts on population health. In this study, associations between short-term exposure to PM
2.5
and PM
10-2.5
and hospitalization for cardiovascular diseases (CVDs) were evaluated in a study from Isfahan, Iran. In a bidirectional case-crossover design, patients who lived in Isfahan and were admitted with a CVD diagnosis in one of 15 hospitals between March 2010 and to March 2012 were included. Time-stratified conditional logistic regression with covariates of SO
2
level, weekend/weekday, temperature, dew point, and wind speed was applied to quantify the odds ratio of CVD admission per interquartile range (IQR) increase in PM. Mean (IQR) concentrations of PM
2.5
and PM
10-2.5
were 60.1 (39.00–63.00) and 62.4 (37.88–93.00) µg/m
3
, respectively, with 25,541 CVD admissions. There were indications of small (1–2% per IQR) increases in risk of admissions that were robust to covariate adjustment with no discernable patterns for different lags. For both PM
2.5
and PM
10-2.5
, there were indications of larger associations for female gender and younger ages. For PM
2.5
, much higher ORs were observed in summer (1.21 (0.95 CI: 1.12, 1.31)) and autumn (1.14 (1.07, 1.21)) for lag period 0–1; while the PM
10-2.5
effect was most prominent in autumn (1.28 (1.22, 1.33)). Small increases in risk of CVD admission were associated with exposure to fine and coarse particle levels with high seasonal variability.