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Evaluation of the environmental epidemiologic data and methodology for the air quality standard in Beijing

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Abstract

To evaluate the relationship between exposure to air pollutants and respiratory emergency room visits, a generalized additive model (GAM) was used to analyze the exposure-effect relationship between air pollutants and respiratory emergency room visits. The results showed that NO2, SO2, and PM10 have positive relationships with respiratory disease. Concentration increases of 10 μg/m3 in NO2, SO2, and PM10 corresponded to 3.90% (95%CI 3.56–4.25), 0.81% (95%CI −0.09–1.72), and 0.64% (95%CI 0.55–0.74) increases in respiratory emergency room visits. In addition, there is a strong synergic effect of PM10 and NO2 on respiratory diseases. The threshold values of the national standard grade II limits used in Beijing should be adjusted. An appropriate standard could effectively promote a significant decline in respiratory room visits and would eventually be beneficial to air quality management in residential areas.

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Acknowledgments

We, the authors, are grateful to the National Scientific Data Sharing Platform for Population and Health for data, the database of the Beijing Environmental Monitoring Center, and to the China Meteorological Data Sharing Service System for data support.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. State Key Laboratory of Environmental Simulation and Pollution Control (SKESPC), School of Environment, Tsinghua University, Beijing, 100084, China

    Xu Li, Pengfei Du & Mujtaba Hassan

  2. Beijing Energy Conservation & Environmental Protection Center (BEEC), Beijing, 100029, China

    Xu Li

  3. School of Life Sciences, Fudan University, Shanghai, 200433, China

    Yanfeng Jiang

  4. Chinese PLA General Hospital, Beijing, 100853, China

    Ling Yin & Tanshi Li

  5. Tianjin Meteorological Observatory, Tianjin, 300074, China

    Bo Liu

  6. College of Atmospheric Science, Lanzhou University, Lanzhou, 730000, China

    Shigong Wang

Authors
  1. Xu Li
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  2. Yanfeng Jiang
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  3. Ling Yin
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  4. Bo Liu
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  5. Pengfei Du
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  6. Mujtaba Hassan
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  7. Shigong Wang
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  8. Tanshi Li
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Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Yanfeng Jiang or Pengfei Du.

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Li, X., Jiang, Y., Yin, L. et al. Evaluation of the environmental epidemiologic data and methodology for the air quality standard in Beijing. Int J Biometeorol 61, 1511–1517 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00484-017-1330-4

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00484-017-1330-4

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