Abstract
Allergic conjunctivitis is a common problem that significantly impairs patients’ quality of life. Whether air pollution serves as a risk factor for the development of allergic conjunctivitis remains elusive. In this paper, we assess the relationship between air pollutants and weather conditions with outpatient visits for allergic conjunctivitis. By using a time-series analysis based on the largest dataset ever assembled to date, we found that the number of outpatient visits for allergic conjunctivitis was significantly correlated with the levels of NO2, O3, and temperature, while its association with humidity was statistically marginal. No associations between PM10, PM2.5, SO2, or wind velocity and outpatient visits were seen. Subgroup analyses showed that sex seemed to modify the effects of humidity on outpatient visits for allergic conjunctivitis, but not for NO2, O3, or temperature. People younger than 40 were found to be susceptible to changes of all four parameters, while those older than 40 were only consistently affected by NO2 levels. Our findings revealed that higher levels of ambient NO2, O3, and temperature increase the chances of outpatient visits for allergic conjunctivitis. Ambient air pollution and weather changes may contribute to the worsening of allergic conjunctivitis.
Highlights
With the rapid industrialization and urbanization, air quality problems and other environmental health troubles are becoming major sources of morbidity and mortality in human[1]
The current study included 3,211,820 outpatient visits by 15,938,870 subjects enrolled in Shanghai Health Insurance System (SHIS) for allergic conjunctivitis
The outpatient visits may be mostly described as a Poisson event, the large mean of the weekly visit can be approximated by a Gaussian distribution (Supplemental file 1)
Summary
With the rapid industrialization and urbanization, air quality problems and other environmental health troubles are becoming major sources of morbidity and mortality in human[1]. We hypothesize that ambient air pollution as well as weather changes, are both associated with risk for allergic conjunctivitis To address this issue, population-wide data is crucial. The current study exemplifies a unique situation whereby population-wide outpatient attendance for allergic conjunctivitis in Shanghai was recorded systemically from 2008 to 2012, as well as the information on ambient air pollutants and weather conditions. The availability of such a large dataset allowed us to assess the effects of ambient air pollutants and weather conditions on the prevalence of allergic conjunctivitis with statistical rigor
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