The Effects Of Air Pollution On Acute Myocardial Infarction, By Gender

Abstract

Introduction: Cardiovascular diseases, especially acute myocardial infarction, are the main cause of mortality and disability in Brazil and in the world. Several studies have shown evidence about the effects of air pollution on these diseases and their impact on health system. Objective: To assess the lag structure between air pollution exposure and over 50 year old cardiovascular diseases hospital admissions, by gender. The study period was January 1, 2012 to December 31, 2013, in São José dos Campos SP. Methods: This is a time series ecological study. The daily data of hospitalizations due to AMI (by gender), pollutants CO, O3, PM10, SO2 and NO2 were analyzed to estimate the association between hospitalizations due to AMI and air pollutants. It was fitted generalized linear Poisson regressions to assess the relative risk with lagged effects of air pollutants on hospital admissions up to 5 days after exposure, adjusted for time trend, minimum temperature, relative humidity and weekdays. Results: 1837 individuals were hospitalized in the period by AMI, with 636 women and 1201 men. For women, the risks were significant for CO in Lags 0 (RR = 1.31), Lag1 (RR = 1.28) and Lag 5 (RR = 1.44) and for SO2 in Lag 0 (RR = 1.05). For men there was significance for CO on Lag 5 (RR = 1.24). Regardless of gender was significant for CO on Lag 5 (RR = 1.30) and Lag 0 for SO2 (RR = 1.01). Discussion: There are few national studies that show the effects of CO exposure and hospitalizations for AMI. Our study demonstrates that the effects of CO exposure were higher and early among female group. SO2 was significant when both genders were analyzed, however when SO2 was categorized, remained significant only in the female gender. The data presented shows the important role of CO and SO2 in the genesis of admissions and it's suggested that studies about effects of air pollution should be categorized according to gender, because the risks changes according to gender, pollutant and lag.