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A 10-year time-series analysis of respiratory and cardiovascular morbidity in Nicosia, Cyprus: the effect of short-term changes in air pollution and dust storms

BACKGROUND: To date, a substantial body of research has shown adverse health effects of short-term changes in levels of air pollution. Such associations have not been investigated in smaller size cities in the Eastern Mediterranean. A particular feature in the region is dust blown from the Sahara a...

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Autores principales: Middleton, Nicos, Yiallouros, Panayiotis, Kleanthous, Savvas, Kolokotroni, Ourania, Schwartz, Joel, Dockery, Douglas W, Demokritou, Phil, Koutrakis, Petros
Formato: Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: BioMed Central 2008
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2517071/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18647382
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1476-069X-7-39
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author Middleton, Nicos
Yiallouros, Panayiotis
Kleanthous, Savvas
Kolokotroni, Ourania
Schwartz, Joel
Dockery, Douglas W
Demokritou, Phil
Koutrakis, Petros
author_facet Middleton, Nicos
Yiallouros, Panayiotis
Kleanthous, Savvas
Kolokotroni, Ourania
Schwartz, Joel
Dockery, Douglas W
Demokritou, Phil
Koutrakis, Petros
author_sort Middleton, Nicos
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: To date, a substantial body of research has shown adverse health effects of short-term changes in levels of air pollution. Such associations have not been investigated in smaller size cities in the Eastern Mediterranean. A particular feature in the region is dust blown from the Sahara a few times a year resulting in extreme PM(10 )concentrations. It is not entirely clear whether such natural phenomena pose the same risks. METHODS: The effect of changes in daily levels of particulate matter (PM(10)) and ozone (O(3)) on hospitalization for all, cardiovascular and respiratory causes in the two hospitals in Nicosia during 1 January 1995 and 30 December 2004 was investigated using generalized additive Poisson models after controlling for long- and short-term patterns as well as for the effect of weather. Meteorological records were reviewed to identify dust-storm days and analyses were repeated to quantify their effect on cardio-respiratory morbidity. RESULTS: For every 10 μg/m(3 )increase in daily average PM(10 )concentrations, there was a 0.9% (95%CI: 0.6%, 1.2%) increase in all-cause and 1.2% (95%CI: -0.0%, 2.4%) increase in cardiovascular admissions. With respect to respiratory causes, an effect was observed only in the warm months. No lagged effects with levels of PM(10 )were observed. In contrast, positive associations with levels of ozone were only observed the two days prior to admission. These appeared stronger for cardiovascular causes and independent of the effect of PM. All-cause and cardiovascular admissions were 4.8% (95%CI: 0.7%, 9.0%) and 10.4% (95%CI: -4.7%, 27.9%) higher on dust storm days respectively. In both cases the magnitude of effect was comparable to that seen on the quartile of non-storm days with the highest levels of PM(10). CONCLUSION: We observed an increased risk of hospitalization at elevated levels of particulate matter and ozone generally consistent with the magnitude seen across several European cities. We also observed an increased risk of hospitalization on dust storm days, particularly for cardiovascular causes. While inference from these associations is limited due to the small number of dust storm days in the study period, it would appear imperative to issue health warnings for these natural events, particularly directed towards vulnerable population groups.
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spelling pubmed-25170712008-08-16 A 10-year time-series analysis of respiratory and cardiovascular morbidity in Nicosia, Cyprus: the effect of short-term changes in air pollution and dust storms Middleton, Nicos Yiallouros, Panayiotis Kleanthous, Savvas Kolokotroni, Ourania Schwartz, Joel Dockery, Douglas W Demokritou, Phil Koutrakis, Petros Environ Health Research BACKGROUND: To date, a substantial body of research has shown adverse health effects of short-term changes in levels of air pollution. Such associations have not been investigated in smaller size cities in the Eastern Mediterranean. A particular feature in the region is dust blown from the Sahara a few times a year resulting in extreme PM(10 )concentrations. It is not entirely clear whether such natural phenomena pose the same risks. METHODS: The effect of changes in daily levels of particulate matter (PM(10)) and ozone (O(3)) on hospitalization for all, cardiovascular and respiratory causes in the two hospitals in Nicosia during 1 January 1995 and 30 December 2004 was investigated using generalized additive Poisson models after controlling for long- and short-term patterns as well as for the effect of weather. Meteorological records were reviewed to identify dust-storm days and analyses were repeated to quantify their effect on cardio-respiratory morbidity. RESULTS: For every 10 μg/m(3 )increase in daily average PM(10 )concentrations, there was a 0.9% (95%CI: 0.6%, 1.2%) increase in all-cause and 1.2% (95%CI: -0.0%, 2.4%) increase in cardiovascular admissions. With respect to respiratory causes, an effect was observed only in the warm months. No lagged effects with levels of PM(10 )were observed. In contrast, positive associations with levels of ozone were only observed the two days prior to admission. These appeared stronger for cardiovascular causes and independent of the effect of PM. All-cause and cardiovascular admissions were 4.8% (95%CI: 0.7%, 9.0%) and 10.4% (95%CI: -4.7%, 27.9%) higher on dust storm days respectively. In both cases the magnitude of effect was comparable to that seen on the quartile of non-storm days with the highest levels of PM(10). CONCLUSION: We observed an increased risk of hospitalization at elevated levels of particulate matter and ozone generally consistent with the magnitude seen across several European cities. We also observed an increased risk of hospitalization on dust storm days, particularly for cardiovascular causes. While inference from these associations is limited due to the small number of dust storm days in the study period, it would appear imperative to issue health warnings for these natural events, particularly directed towards vulnerable population groups. BioMed Central 2008-07-22 /pmc/articles/PMC2517071/ /pubmed/18647382 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1476-069X-7-39 Text en Copyright © 2008 Middleton et al; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0 This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License ( (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0) ), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
spellingShingle Research
Middleton, Nicos
Yiallouros, Panayiotis
Kleanthous, Savvas
Kolokotroni, Ourania
Schwartz, Joel
Dockery, Douglas W
Demokritou, Phil
Koutrakis, Petros
A 10-year time-series analysis of respiratory and cardiovascular morbidity in Nicosia, Cyprus: the effect of short-term changes in air pollution and dust storms
title A 10-year time-series analysis of respiratory and cardiovascular morbidity in Nicosia, Cyprus: the effect of short-term changes in air pollution and dust storms
title_full A 10-year time-series analysis of respiratory and cardiovascular morbidity in Nicosia, Cyprus: the effect of short-term changes in air pollution and dust storms
title_fullStr A 10-year time-series analysis of respiratory and cardiovascular morbidity in Nicosia, Cyprus: the effect of short-term changes in air pollution and dust storms
title_full_unstemmed A 10-year time-series analysis of respiratory and cardiovascular morbidity in Nicosia, Cyprus: the effect of short-term changes in air pollution and dust storms
title_short A 10-year time-series analysis of respiratory and cardiovascular morbidity in Nicosia, Cyprus: the effect of short-term changes in air pollution and dust storms
title_sort 10-year time-series analysis of respiratory and cardiovascular morbidity in nicosia, cyprus: the effect of short-term changes in air pollution and dust storms
topic Research
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2517071/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18647382
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1476-069X-7-39
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