A Study of Air Quality Impacts on Upper Respiratory Tract Diseases

Abstract

Upper respiratory tract (URT) diseases are highly related to air quality. Recent interests have focused on traffic-related air pollution and the potential health effects associated with such exposure. These studies have indicated a strong correlation between air pollution and its related diseases. With advances made in computer technologies, Geographic Information Systems (GIS) nowadays provide useful spatial analysis tools to examine spatial characteristics of air quality. Maps of the spatial distribution of air pollutants can be produced with a GIS to facilitate in-depth studies. Our study incorporated the 2003 Cancer Death Rate (CDR) map provided by the Bureau of National Health Insurance with the air quality data provided by the Environmental Protection Agency to examine the associations between air pollution and upper respiratory tract diseases. First, maps of select air pollutants (NOX, O3 PMi0 SO2 and CO) were produced using the inverse distance weighting interpolation method. Then, a series of statistical analyses were performed to examine the correlation between these pollutants. Finally, a multivariate regression analysis of association was preformed to study the correlation between air pollution and URT diseases. The results indicated a strong correlation between NOX and CO (coefficient of correlation 0.92), and association between these pollutants and URT diseases.