Short-term exposure to ambient air pollution and individual emergency department visits for COVID-19: a case-crossover study in Canada.
Thorax
; 2022 Mar 31.
Article
in English
| MEDLINE | ID: covidwho-2298502
ABSTRACT
BACKGROUND:
Ambient air pollution is thought to contribute to increased risk of COVID-19, but the evidence is controversial.OBJECTIVE:
To evaluate the associations between short-term variations in outdoor concentrations of ambient air pollution and COVID-19 emergency department (ED) visits.METHODS:
We conducted a case-crossover study of 78 255 COVID-19 ED visits in Alberta and Ontario, Canada between 1 March 2020 and 31 March 2021. Daily air pollution data (ie, fine particulate matter with diameter less than 2.5 µm (PM2.5), nitrogen dioxide (NO2) and ozone were assigned to individual case of COVID-19 in 10 km × 10 km grid resolution. Conditional logistic regression was used to estimate associations between air pollution and ED visits for COVID-19.RESULTS:
Cumulative ambient exposure over 0-3 days to PM2.5 (OR 1.010; 95% CI 1.004 to 1.015, per 6.2 µg/m3) and NO2 (OR 1.021; 95% CI 1.015 to 1.028, per 7.7 ppb) concentrations were associated with ED visits for COVID-19. We found that the association between PM2.5 and COVID-19 ED visits was stronger among those hospitalised following an ED visit, as a measure of disease severity, (OR 1.023; 95% CI 1.015 to 1.031) compared with those not hospitalised (OR 0.992; 95% CI 0.980 to 1.004) (p value for effect modification=0.04).CONCLUSIONS:
We found associations between short-term exposure to ambient air pollutants and COVID-19 ED visits. Exposure to air pollution may also lead to more severe COVID-19 disease.
Full text:
Available
Collection:
International databases
Database:
MEDLINE
Type of study:
Experimental Studies
/
Prognostic study
Language:
English
Year:
2022
Document Type:
Article
Affiliation country:
Thoraxjnl-2021-217602
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