Skip to main content

Advertisement

SpringerLink
Log in

Air pollution and associated respiratory morbidity in Delhi

  • Published:
Health Care Management Science Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

As a rapidly expanding centre of government, trade, commerce and industry, Delhi, the Indian capital, presents an instructive location for studying the possible association between air pollution and adverse health effects. This study tries to determine the association, if any, between the air pollutants—sulphur dioxide, nitrogen dioxide, carbon monoxide, ozone, suspended particulate matter and respiratory suspended particulate matter—and daily variations in respiratory morbidity in Delhi during the years 2004–2005. Data analysis was based on the Generalized Additive Poisson regression model including a Lowess smoothing function for the entire patient population and subgroups defined by season. The best fitting lag period for each pollutant was found by testing its concentration at varying lags. The model demonstrated associations between daily visits and some of the pollutants (O3, NO2 and RSPM) but their strongest components were observed at varying lags. A single pollutant model showed that a 10 μg m−3 rise in pollutant level led to statistically significant relative risks (RR): 1.033 for O3, 1.004 for NO2, 1.006 for RSPM. The effect of particulate was relatively low, presumably because unlike other pollutants, particulate matter is not a single pollutant but rather a class of pollutants. This study, continued on a long term basis, can provide guidelines for anticipation/preparedness in the management of health care and hospital admissions.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Fig. 1
Fig. 2
Fig. 3
Fig. 4

Similar content being viewed by others

Abbreviations

m:

meter

μ:

micron

g:

gram

°C:

degree Celsius

km:

kilometer

References

  1. Katsouyanni K, Toulaumi G, Spix C, Schwartz J, Balducci F, Mdina S, Rossi G, Wojtyniak B, Bacharova L (1997) Short term effects of ambient sulphur dioxide and particulate matter on mortality in 12 European cities: results from time series data from the APHEA project. Br Med J 314:1658–1663

    Google Scholar 

  2. Pope AC, Thun MJ, Namboodir MM, Dockery DW, Evans JS, Spezer FE, Heath CW Jr (1995) Particulate air pollution as a predictor of mortality in a prospective study for US adults. Am J Respir Crit Care Med 151:669–674

    Google Scholar 

  3. Schwartz J, Slater D, Larson TV (1993) Particulate air pollution and hospital emergency room visits for asthma in Seattle. Am Rev Respir Dis 147:826–831

    Google Scholar 

  4. Schwartz J (1997) Air Pollution and hospital admissions for cardiovascular diseases in Tucson. Epidemiology 8:371–377

    Article  Google Scholar 

  5. WHO (2000) Guidelines for air quality. World Health Organization, Geneva

    Google Scholar 

  6. Brandon C (1995) The cost of inaction: valuing the economy-wide cost of environmental degradation in India. World Bank, New York

    Google Scholar 

  7. Chhabra SK, Chhabra P, Rajpal S, Gupta RK (2001) Ambient air pollution and chronic respiratory morbidity in Delhi. Arch Environ Health 56:58–64

    Article  Google Scholar 

  8. Cropper ML, Simon NB, Alberini A, Sharma PK (1997) The health effects of air pollution in Delhi, India. Working Paper Series no. 1860. World Bank, New York

    Google Scholar 

  9. Joshi TK (1998) A health survey to determine the adverse health impact of pollution in Delhi. Centre for occupational and environmental medicine. MAMC, New Delhi

    Google Scholar 

  10. Lahiri T, Roy S, Basu C, Ganguly S, Ray MR, Lahiri P (2000) Air pollution in Calcutta elicits adverse pulmonary reaction in children. Indian J Med Res 112:21–26

    Google Scholar 

  11. Pande JN, Bhatta N, Biswas D, Pandey RM, Ahluwalia G, Siddaramaiah NH, Khilnani GC (2001) Outdoor air pollution and emergency room visits at a hospital in Delhi. Indian J Chest Dis Allied Sci 44:13–19

    Google Scholar 

  12. Agarwal R, Jayaraman G, Anand S, Marimuthu P (2006) Assessing respiratory morbidity through pollution status and meteorological conditions for Delhi. Environ Monit Assess 114:489–504

    Article  Google Scholar 

  13. Nidhi, Jayaraman G (2007) Air quality and respiratory health in Delhi. Environ Monit Assess 135:313–325

    Article  Google Scholar 

  14. Hastie T, Tibshirani R (1990) Generalized additive models. Chapman & Hall, London

    Google Scholar 

  15. Schimek MG (2000) Estimation and inference in partially linear models with smoothing splines. J Stat Plan Inference 91:525–540

    Article  Google Scholar 

  16. Wong TW, Lau TS et al (1999) Air pollution and hospital admissions for respiratory and cardiovascular diseases in Hong Kong. Occup Environ Med 56(10):679–683

    Article  Google Scholar 

  17. Chin AL, Periera LAA et al (2003) Association between air pollution and ischemic cardiovascular emergence room visits. Environ Res 92:57–63

    Article  Google Scholar 

  18. Cho B, Choi J, Yum YT (2000) Air pollution and hospital admissions for respiratory diseases in certain areas of Korea. J Occup Health 42:185–191

    Article  Google Scholar 

  19. Katsouyanni K, Toulomi G et al (2001) Confounding and effect modification in short-term effects of ambient particles on total mortality results from 29 European cities within the APHEA 2 project. Epidemiology 12(5):521–531

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgement

The financial support from the Department of Science and Technology, Government of India (ES/48/ICRP/004/2002) is gratefully acknowledged. The critical remarks by the referees which have helped to enhance the quality of this paper are gratefully acknowledged. The authors thank Mr. G. Senthil for the technical support.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Centre for Atmospherics Sciences, Indian Institute of Technology Delhi, New Delhi, 110 016, India

    Girija Jayaraman &  Nidhi

Authors
  1. Girija Jayaraman
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Nidhi
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Girija Jayaraman.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Jayaraman, G., Nidhi Air pollution and associated respiratory morbidity in Delhi. Health Care Manage Sci 11, 132–138 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10729-007-9050-7

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10729-007-9050-7

Keywords

Search

Navigation