TY - JOUR T1 - Mortality in acute medical admissions is impacted by air quality JF - European Respiratory Journal JO - Eur Respir J VL - 44 IS - Suppl 58 SP - P4961 AU - Judith Lyons AU - Sanjay Chotirmall AU - Deirdre O'Riordan AU - Bernard Silke Y1 - 2014/09/01 UR - http://erj.ersjournals.com/content/44/Suppl_58/P4961.abstract N2 - Aim: Air pollution degraded by black smoke(particulate matter, PM 10), sulphur dioxide(SO2) and nitrogen oxide(NOX) affects human health. National legislation has led to improved air quality and lower death rates in Dublin. Our study investigates the impact of current air pollutant concentrations (PM10,SO2 and NOX) on in-hospital mortality of acute medical admissions to St James's Hospital over a decade(2002-2011).Design: All emergency admissions(55,596 episodes in n=32,581 patients) were tracked prospectively and mortality assessed. Daily levels of PM10, SO2 and NOx were obtained from monitoring stations in our catchment area.Methods: Univariate and multivariate logistic regression was employed to examine relationships between pollutant concentration and Odds Ratio(OR) for death following adjustment for other mortality predictors.Results: Mortality related to each pollutant variable assessed (as quintiles of increasing atmospheric concentration) were significantly predictive. For PM10 and SO2, mortality in the highest three quintile concentrations (compared to base quintile) was significantly increased (p‹0.001) with univariate ORs of 1.24, 1.36 and 1.25 for PM10 and 1.43, 1.54 and 1.58 for SO2 respectively. Mortality in all quintile concentrations (compared to base quintile) was significantly increased(p‹0.05) for NOX with univariate ORs of 1.14, 1.18, 1.28 and 1.35 respectively. Following adjustment for other mortality predictors, all three air pollutants were independently predictive of mortality.Conclusion: Current low air pollutant concentrations continue to affect human health. European legislation on safe levels of air pollution should be re-considered. ER -