THE ASIAN DUST EVENTS AND HOSPITAL ADMISSIONS WITH RESPIRATORY AND CARDIOVASCULAR DISEASE IN SEOUL, KOREA

Abstract

The Korean peninsula has a long history of spring time dust clouds blown by winds from the arid deserts of Mongolia and China, these are called Asian dust event. During the episode in 2002, daily average of PM10 in Seoul exceeded 600 mg/m3. Public concern about the possible adverse effects of these dust events has increased, because the dust arrives in Korea after having passed over heavily industrialized eastern China. This study was planned to investigate the association between the episode of the Asian dust and hospital admissions with respiratory and cardiovascular disease in Seoul, Korea. We constructed daily counts of all admissions for respiratory disease (ICD-10 codes J00–J99) and cardiovascular disease (ICD-10 codes I00–I99) in Seoul during the period of 2000 through 2002. A generalized linear model with a log-link and a Poisson distribution were used to examine the relation of Asian dust events to hospital admissions, adjusting for weather variables and time trends of admission counts. To accommodate delayed effects of Asian dust events, we fitted the model with 7-day moving averages of admission counts. The estimated relative risk of hospitalization for respiratory disease for the Asian dust events was 1.00 (95% confidence interval [CI] = 0.96–1.03) and the risk for cardiovascular disease was 0.99 (95% CI = 0.96–1.02). Our results indicate that the Asian dust events experienced in Seoul has little effect on the hospitalization for respiratory and cardiovascular disease in general. Acknowledgement: this study was supported by the Ministry of Environment, Republic of Korea (Eco-technopia 2002).