Abstract
Researchers have been interested in probing how the environmental factors associated with allergic diseases affect the use of medical services. Considering this demand, we have constructed a database, named the Allergic Disease Database, based on the National Health Insurance Database (NHID). The NHID contains information on demographic and medical service utilization for approximately 99% of the Korean population. This study targeted 3 major allergic diseases, including allergic rhinitis, atopic dermatitis, and asthma. For the target diseases, our database provides daily medical service information, including the number of daily visits from 2013 and 2017, categorized by patients’ characteristics such as address, sex, age, and duration of residence. We provide additional information, including yearly population, a number of patients, and averaged geocoding coordinates by eup, myeon, and dong district code (the smallest-scale administrative units in Korea). This information enables researchers to analyze how daily changes in the environmental factors of allergic diseases (e.g., particulate matter, sulfur dioxide, and ozone) in certain regions would influence patients’ behavioral patterns of medical service utilization. Moreover, researchers can analyze long-term trends in allergic diseases and the health effects caused by environmental factors such as daily climate and pollution data. The advantages of this database are easy access to data, additional levels of geographic detail, time-efficient data-refining and processing, and a de-identification process that minimizes the exposure of identifiable personal information. All datasets included in the Allergic Disease Database can be downloaded by accessing the National Health Insurance Service data sharing webpage (https://nhiss.nhis.or.kr).
Highlights
The increasingly severe problems posed by air pollution, such as fine particulate matter (PM) and yellow dust, have prompted numerous researchers to study the effects of these pollutants on morbidity and mortality
Studies have reported that air pollution and other environmental factors increase the prevalence of cancer and cardio-cerebrovascular diseases, and have impacts on premature deaths and the use of medical services [1,2,3]
The World Health Organization has reported that one-fourth of deaths are caused by preventable environmental factors of allergic diseases, with air pollution (e.g., PM, sulfur dioxide [SO2], and ozone [O3]) having an especially large effect
Summary
It has been easy to acquire data in Korea for research purposes through the National Health Insurance Database (NHID), which contains records from the only medical insurance program in the country (provided as a form of social insurance) [6]; demand has emerged for additional datasets to use for research into environmental factors of allergic diseases. The database contains information on daily medical service utilization, yearly population and number of patients, address codes, and averaged geocoding coordinates by district (Table 1).
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