Ambient air pollutants relate to hospital admissions for chronic obstructive pulmonary disease in Ganzhou, China

OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the relationship between ambient air pollutants and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease in relatively low-polluted areas in China. METHODS: Atmospheric pollutants levels and meteorological data were obtained from January 2016 to December 2020. The medical database including daily hospital admissions for chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (ICD10: J44) was derived from the First Affiliated Hospital of Gannan Medical University. The generalized additive model was used to analyze the percentage change with 95% confidence interval in daily hospital admissions for chronic obstructive pulmonary disease associated with a 10 µg/m(3 )increase in atmospheric pollutants levels. RESULTS: In total, occurred 4,980 chronic obstructive pulmonary disease hospital admissions (not including emergency department visits) during 2016–2020. The mean concentrations of daily PM(2.5), PM(10), SO(2), NO(2), O(3), and CO were 37.5 μg/m(3), 60.1 μg/m(3), 18.7 μg/m(3), 23.5 μg/m(3), 70.0 μg/m(3), and 1.2 mg/m(3) in Ganzhou. Each 10 µg/m(3) increment of PM(2.5), PM(10), NO(2), and O(3) were significantly associated with 2.8% (95%CI: 1.0–4.7), 1.3% (95%CI: 0.3–2.4), 2.8% (95%CI: 0.4–5.4), and 1.5% (95%CI: 0.2–2.7) elevation in daily chronic obstructive pulmonary disease hospital admissions. The estimates of delayed effects of PM(2.5), PM(10), NO(2), and O(3) were observed at lag6, lag6, lag8, lag1, respectively. The health effects of particulate pollutants (PM(2.5) and PM(10)) may be independent of other pollutants. The adverse effects of air pollutants were more evident in the warm season (May–Oct) than in the cold season (Nov–Apr). CONCLUSION: Our study demonstrated that elevated concentrations of atmospheric pollutant (PM(2.5), PM(10), NO(2), and O(3)), especially particulate pollutants, can be associated with increased daily count of hospital admissions for chronic obstructive pulmonary disease , which may promote further understanding of the potential hazards of relatively low levels of air pollution on chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and other respiratory disorders.