ABSTRACT
Background and Objectives: In recent years, associations between air pollution and cardiovascular diseases have been reported around the world. However, a few studies have been conducted in industrial megacities which face air pollution in Iran. This study aimed to determine the association between air pollution and hospital admissions for cardiovascular diseases in Tabriz
Materials and Methods: We applied a case-crossover analysis to compute associations between daily concentrations of air pollutants including NO[2], SO[2], CO, PMi[0] and O[3] and hospital admissions for cardio-vascular diseases. Daily hospital admission data from 2009 to 2011 were collected from five hospitals in Tabriz. Air quality data for the study period were obtained from the six fixed online air quality monitoring stations operated by Tabriz Air Quality Control Center. The daily mean temperature and relative humidity data for the same period were obtained from East Azerbaijan Meteorological Bureau
Results: From the 1.512 cases, the data of 753 cases were used in our analysis. The results of ANNs with importance analysis showed that the most important causes of hospital admissions due to 120 were 03, SO[2], NO and PM[0], for 121 were SO[2], NO and NO[2] and for 120.9 were O[3], SO[2], NO and NO[2]. According to the results, die air pollutants had greater adverse effects on females and older cases
Conclusions: The results of this study showed that gaseous air pollutants including SO[2], NO and O[3] had the greatest effects on hospital admissions for cardiovascular diseases and significant effects on females and older people