Abstract
Adverse health impacts of Asian dust storms (ADS) have been widely investigated and discussed in respiratory disease, but no study has examined the association between ADS events and their impact on eye diseases, especially in children. The impact of ADS events on the incidence of children's conjunctivitis is examined by analyzing the data from children's clinic visits registered in the 41 districts of Taipei area in Taiwan during the period 2002–2007. The structural additive regression modeling approach was used to assess the association between ADS events and clinic visits for conjunctivitis in children with consideration of day-of-the-week effects, temperature, and air quality levels. This study identifies an acute increase in the relative rate for children's conjunctivitis clinic visits during ADS periods with 1.48% (95% CI = 0.79, 2.17) for preschool children (aged <6 years old) and 9.48% (95% CI = 9.03, 9.93) for schoolchildren (aged ≥6 years old), respectively. The relative rates during post-ADS periods were still statistically significant, but much lower than those during ADS periods. The spatial analysis presents geographic heterogeneity of children's conjunctivitis clinic visits where higher relative rates were more likely observed in the most populated districts Compared to previous ADS studies related to respiratory diseases, our results reveals significantly acute impacts on children's conjunctivitis during ADS periods, and much influence on schoolchildren. Vulnerable areas were also identified in high density population.
Highlights
Asian dust storm (ADS) events, severe wide-spread disasters that spawn from Mongolia and North China, cause many diseases including respiratory diseases, cardiovascular diseases, asthma, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, pneumonia, and stroke
The main purpose of this study was to investigate the spatiotemporal influence of ADS events on the development of conjunctivitis in children by using a large, population-based database taken from daily clinic visits registered in hospitals and clinics in Northern Taiwan from 2002–2007
The other air pollutants had decreased average measurements from the other period through the ADS period, but these were increased during the post-ADS period
Summary
Asian dust storm (ADS) events, severe wide-spread disasters that spawn from Mongolia and North China, cause many diseases including respiratory diseases, cardiovascular diseases, asthma, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, pneumonia, and stroke. Eye exposure to direct contact with air pollutants during these storms and the subsequent development of conjunctivitis has rarely been discussed. Previous research has established an association between the development of conjunctivitis and the ambient levels of outdoor air pollution or airborne allergens, such as fungal spores and pollen grains [10,11,12]. Indoor air pollution, such as the cooking smoke from the combustion of biomass (e.g., charcoal, wood, and dung), has been investigated as a causal agent in the development of conjunctivitis and other eye diseases [13]. Epidemiological research on the ADS effects to eye health is still rare,, and has not yielded any significant findings [15]
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