Linking PM Pollution to the Respiratory Health of Children: A Cross-sectional Study from Ahmedabad City in Western India

Abstract

Worldwide research on public health suggests that air pollution (AP) has deleterious human health impacts. Children living in developing countries suffer a double burden of respiratory diseases. The present study aims to find out the risk of short-term exposure to PM2.5 on respiratory admissions of children under 6 from Ahmedabad city in western India. A cross-section observational study of all patients, under 6, with respiratory illnesses admitted in the Pediatric ward from 1st November 2017‒31st December 2018 at a tertiary care hospital in Ahmedabad has been conducted to decipher the seasonal impact of PM2.5 on respiratory admissions. During the study period, respiratory illnesses accounted for 21.2% of the total admissions−60.6% were male, 48.4% were of infant age, 60.1% of the patients were suffering from wheezing disorders while 39.9% had infective disorders. The relative risk (RR) and the number of attributable cases per 100,000 children population at risk were estimated due to short-term exposure to PM2.5 for different seasons in Ahmedabad city applying a log-linear integrated exposure-response function in WHO/Europe’s AirQ+ tool using national census-2011 city-level population of children and United Nation’s annual growth-rate, baseline incidence, PM2.5 pollution profile, WHO’s updated counterfactual value for short-term PM2.5 exposure (= 15 µg m–3). Accordingly, the RR for the number of respiratory admissions of children due to ambient levels of PM2.5 in winter was 1.16 (95% CI: 1.09−1.23), in summer was 1.15 (95% CI: 1.09−1.21), in monsoon was 1.08 (95% CI: 1.03−1.13) and in post-monsoon was 1.15 (95% CI: 1.07−1.23). The number of attributable cases (along with confidence interval: CI), per 100,000 population of children under 6 at risk, was 45 (95% CI: 21‒68) in winter, 41 (95% CI: 19‒63) in summer, 25 (95% CI: 11‒39) in monsoon, and 42 (95% CI: 18‒66) in the post-monsoon season.