Air Pollution in Kosovo: Short Term Effects on Hospital Visits of Children Due to Respiratory Health Diagnoses.
Int J Environ Res Public Health
; 19(16)2022 08 16.
Article
in English
| MEDLINE | ID: covidwho-1987803
ABSTRACT
The Republic of Kosovo is a small country in the Balkans. The capital city of Pristina hosts most of its population and is situated in a mountain basin with poor air exchange, especially during winter. Domestic heating, road transport, industry and coal-fired power plants contribute to high levels of air pollution. We performed a time-series analysis on effects of particulate air pollution (PM2.5) on respiratory health of children and adolescents, using hospital admission and ambulatory visit numbers from the pediatric university clinic. From 2018 until 2020, daily mean concentrations of PM2.5 ranged between 2.41 and 161.03 µg/m³. On average, there were 6.7 ambulatory visits per day with lower numbers on weekends and during the first COVID-19 wave in 2020. An increase in PM2.5 led to an immediate increase in visit numbers that lasted over several days. Averaged over a full week, this amounted to about a 1% increase per 10 µg/m³. There were, on average, 1.7 hospital admissions per day. Two and three days after a rise in air pollution, there was also a rise in admission numbers, followed by a decline during the consecutive days. This might indicate that the wards were overstressed because of high admission numbers and restricted additional admissions.
Keywords
Full text:
Available
Collection:
International databases
Database:
MEDLINE
Main subject:
Air Pollutants
/
Air Pollution
/
COVID-19
Type of study:
Experimental Studies
/
Observational study
Limits:
Adolescent
/
Child
/
Humans
Country/Region as subject:
Europa
Language:
English
Year:
2022
Document Type:
Article
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