Investigation of association between asthma occurrence and air pollutants using national health insurance claim data

Abstract

Objectives:

This study is designed to investigate association between asthma occurrence and air pollutants.

Methods:

This study is based on national health insurance claim, air pollutants and population data from 2008 to 2012 in seoul, KOREA. And the value of air pollutants is daily average of NO₂(ppm), SO₂(ppm), PM10(µg/m³). The final analysis data set is 1,504 days data excluding holidays. It is classified into two groups whether the daily value of air pollutants exceeds each national ambient air quality(Group 1) or not(Group 2). T-test was applied to investigate the difference of the asthma case rates in two groups. ANOVA test is also implemented to identify the difference of the asthma case rates as increasing 4 air pollutants levels.

Results:

The numbers of days that the daily value of each air pollutants exceeds national ambient air quality standards are NO₂: 53(3.5%) days, SO₂: 0 day and PM10: 82(5.5%) days among 1,504 days. Compared with the asthma case rates(per 10,000 population) in Group 2, the asthma case rates in Group 1 are increased 0.44(95% C.I. : 0.18 – 0.70, P=0.0011) for NO₂ and 0.43(95% C.I. : 0.23 – 0.64, P<.0001) for PM10. For Group 1, according to increase the air pollutants level, the difference of asthma case rates are not significant

• Download figure
• Open in new tab
• Download powerpoint

.

Conclusion:

The asthma case rates in Group 1 are higher than it in Group 2.