Short-Term Associations of Ambient Fine Particulate Matter (PM(2.5)) with All-Cause Hospital Admissions and Total Charges in 12 Japanese Cities

The short-term association between ambient particulate matter ≤2.5 microns in diameter (PM(2.5)) and hospital admissions is not fully understood. Studies of this association with hospital admission costs are also scarce, especially in entire hospitalized populations. We examined the association between ambient PM(2.5) and all-cause hospital admissions, the corresponding total charges, and the total charges per patient by analyzing the hospital admission data of 2 years from 628 hospitals in 12 cities in Japan. We used generalized additive models with quasi-Poisson regression for hospital admissions and generalized additive models with log-linear regression for total charges and total charges per patient. We first estimated city-specific results and the combined results by random-effect models. A total of 2,017,750 hospital admissions were identified. A 10 µg/m(3) increase in the 2 day moving average was associated with a 0.56% (95% CI: 0.14–0.99%) increase in all-cause hospital admissions and a 1.17% (95% CI: 0.44–1.90%) increase in total charges, and a 10 µg/m(3) increase in the prior 2 days was associated with a 0.75% (95% CI: 0.34–1.16%) increase in total charges per patient. Short-term exposure to ambient PM(2.5) was associated with increased all-cause hospital admissions, total charges, and total charges per patient.