Cargando…
Respiratory health among adolescents living in the Highveld Air Pollution Priority Area in South Africa
BACKGROUND: Air pollution is a global, public health emergency. The effect of living in areas with very poor air quality on adolescents’ physical health is largely unknown. The aim of this study was to investigate the prevalence of adverse respiratory health outcomes among adolescents living in a kn...
Autores principales: | , , , , , , , , , , , , |
---|---|
Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
BioMed Central
2022
|
Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9677637/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36411414 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12889-022-14497-8 |
_version_ | 1784833847536386048 |
---|---|
author | Millar, Danielle A. Kapwata, Thandi Kunene, Zamantimande Mogotsi, Mirriam Wernecke, Bianca Garland, Rebecca M. Mathee, Angela Theron, Linda Levine, Diane T. Ungar, Michael Batini, Chiara John, Catherine Wright, Caradee Y. |
author_facet | Millar, Danielle A. Kapwata, Thandi Kunene, Zamantimande Mogotsi, Mirriam Wernecke, Bianca Garland, Rebecca M. Mathee, Angela Theron, Linda Levine, Diane T. Ungar, Michael Batini, Chiara John, Catherine Wright, Caradee Y. |
author_sort | Millar, Danielle A. |
collection | PubMed |
description | BACKGROUND: Air pollution is a global, public health emergency. The effect of living in areas with very poor air quality on adolescents’ physical health is largely unknown. The aim of this study was to investigate the prevalence of adverse respiratory health outcomes among adolescents living in a known air pollution hotspot in South Africa. METHODS: Ambient air quality data from 2005 to 2019 for the two areas, Secunda and eMbalenhle, in the Highveld Air Pollution Priority Area in Mpumalanga province, South Africa were gathered and compared against national ambient air pollution standards and the World Health Organization Air Quality Guidelines. In 2019, adolescents attending schools in the areas completed a self-administered questionnaire investigating individual demographics, socio-economic status, health, medical history, and fuel type used in homes. Respiratory health illnesses assessed were doctor-diagnosed hay fever, allergies, frequent cough, wheezing, bronchitis, pneumonia and asthma. The relationship between presence (at least one) or absence (none) of self-reported respiratory illness and risk factors, e.g., fuel use at home, was explored. Logistic regression was used to estimate the odds ratio and 95% confidence interval (CI) of risk factors associated with respiratory illness adjusted for body mass index (measured by field assistants), gender, education level of both parents / guardians and socio-economic status. RESULTS: Particulate matter and ozone were the two pollutants most frequently exceeding national annual air quality standards in the study area. All 233 adolescent participants were between 13 and 17 years of age. Prevalence of self-reported respiratory symptoms among the participants ranged from 2% for ‘ever’ doctor-diagnosed bronchitis and pneumonia to 42% ever experiencing allergies; wheezing chest was the second most reported symptom (39%). Half (52%) of the adolescents who had respiratory illness were exposed to environmental tobacco smoke in the dwelling. There was a statistically significant difference between the presence or absence of self-reported respiratory illness based on the number of years lived in Secunda or eMbalenhle (p = 0.02). For a one-unit change in the number of years lived in an area, the odds of reporting a respiratory illness increased by a factor of 1.08 (p = 0.025, 95% CI = 1.01–1.16). This association was still statistically significant when the model was adjusted for confounders (p = 0.037). CONCLUSIONS: Adolescents living in air polluted areas experience adverse health impacts Future research should interrogate long-term exposure and health outcomes among adolescents living in the air polluted environment. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s12889-022-14497-8. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-9677637 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2022 |
publisher | BioMed Central |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-96776372022-11-22 Respiratory health among adolescents living in the Highveld Air Pollution Priority Area in South Africa Millar, Danielle A. Kapwata, Thandi Kunene, Zamantimande Mogotsi, Mirriam Wernecke, Bianca Garland, Rebecca M. Mathee, Angela Theron, Linda Levine, Diane T. Ungar, Michael Batini, Chiara John, Catherine Wright, Caradee Y. BMC Public Health Research BACKGROUND: Air pollution is a global, public health emergency. The effect of living in areas with very poor air quality on adolescents’ physical health is largely unknown. The aim of this study was to investigate the prevalence of adverse respiratory health outcomes among adolescents living in a known air pollution hotspot in South Africa. METHODS: Ambient air quality data from 2005 to 2019 for the two areas, Secunda and eMbalenhle, in the Highveld Air Pollution Priority Area in Mpumalanga province, South Africa were gathered and compared against national ambient air pollution standards and the World Health Organization Air Quality Guidelines. In 2019, adolescents attending schools in the areas completed a self-administered questionnaire investigating individual demographics, socio-economic status, health, medical history, and fuel type used in homes. Respiratory health illnesses assessed were doctor-diagnosed hay fever, allergies, frequent cough, wheezing, bronchitis, pneumonia and asthma. The relationship between presence (at least one) or absence (none) of self-reported respiratory illness and risk factors, e.g., fuel use at home, was explored. Logistic regression was used to estimate the odds ratio and 95% confidence interval (CI) of risk factors associated with respiratory illness adjusted for body mass index (measured by field assistants), gender, education level of both parents / guardians and socio-economic status. RESULTS: Particulate matter and ozone were the two pollutants most frequently exceeding national annual air quality standards in the study area. All 233 adolescent participants were between 13 and 17 years of age. Prevalence of self-reported respiratory symptoms among the participants ranged from 2% for ‘ever’ doctor-diagnosed bronchitis and pneumonia to 42% ever experiencing allergies; wheezing chest was the second most reported symptom (39%). Half (52%) of the adolescents who had respiratory illness were exposed to environmental tobacco smoke in the dwelling. There was a statistically significant difference between the presence or absence of self-reported respiratory illness based on the number of years lived in Secunda or eMbalenhle (p = 0.02). For a one-unit change in the number of years lived in an area, the odds of reporting a respiratory illness increased by a factor of 1.08 (p = 0.025, 95% CI = 1.01–1.16). This association was still statistically significant when the model was adjusted for confounders (p = 0.037). CONCLUSIONS: Adolescents living in air polluted areas experience adverse health impacts Future research should interrogate long-term exposure and health outcomes among adolescents living in the air polluted environment. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s12889-022-14497-8. BioMed Central 2022-11-21 /pmc/articles/PMC9677637/ /pubmed/36411414 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12889-022-14497-8 Text en © The Author(s) 2022 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Open AccessThis article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) . The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) ) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated in a credit line to the data. |
spellingShingle | Research Millar, Danielle A. Kapwata, Thandi Kunene, Zamantimande Mogotsi, Mirriam Wernecke, Bianca Garland, Rebecca M. Mathee, Angela Theron, Linda Levine, Diane T. Ungar, Michael Batini, Chiara John, Catherine Wright, Caradee Y. Respiratory health among adolescents living in the Highveld Air Pollution Priority Area in South Africa |
title | Respiratory health among adolescents living in the Highveld Air Pollution Priority Area in South Africa |
title_full | Respiratory health among adolescents living in the Highveld Air Pollution Priority Area in South Africa |
title_fullStr | Respiratory health among adolescents living in the Highveld Air Pollution Priority Area in South Africa |
title_full_unstemmed | Respiratory health among adolescents living in the Highveld Air Pollution Priority Area in South Africa |
title_short | Respiratory health among adolescents living in the Highveld Air Pollution Priority Area in South Africa |
title_sort | respiratory health among adolescents living in the highveld air pollution priority area in south africa |
topic | Research |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9677637/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36411414 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12889-022-14497-8 |
work_keys_str_mv | AT millardaniellea respiratoryhealthamongadolescentslivinginthehighveldairpollutionpriorityareainsouthafrica AT kapwatathandi respiratoryhealthamongadolescentslivinginthehighveldairpollutionpriorityareainsouthafrica AT kunenezamantimande respiratoryhealthamongadolescentslivinginthehighveldairpollutionpriorityareainsouthafrica AT mogotsimirriam respiratoryhealthamongadolescentslivinginthehighveldairpollutionpriorityareainsouthafrica AT werneckebianca respiratoryhealthamongadolescentslivinginthehighveldairpollutionpriorityareainsouthafrica AT garlandrebeccam respiratoryhealthamongadolescentslivinginthehighveldairpollutionpriorityareainsouthafrica AT matheeangela respiratoryhealthamongadolescentslivinginthehighveldairpollutionpriorityareainsouthafrica AT theronlinda respiratoryhealthamongadolescentslivinginthehighveldairpollutionpriorityareainsouthafrica AT levinedianet respiratoryhealthamongadolescentslivinginthehighveldairpollutionpriorityareainsouthafrica AT ungarmichael respiratoryhealthamongadolescentslivinginthehighveldairpollutionpriorityareainsouthafrica AT batinichiara respiratoryhealthamongadolescentslivinginthehighveldairpollutionpriorityareainsouthafrica AT johncatherine respiratoryhealthamongadolescentslivinginthehighveldairpollutionpriorityareainsouthafrica AT wrightcaradeey respiratoryhealthamongadolescentslivinginthehighveldairpollutionpriorityareainsouthafrica |