Department of Bioenvironmental Systems Engineering, National Taiwan University, Taipei, Taiwan.
PLoS One. 2012;7(7):e41317. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0041317. Epub 2012 Jul 27.
Concerns have been raised about the adverse impact of Asian dust storms (ADS) on human health; however, few studies have examined the effect of these events on children's health. Using databases from the Taiwan National Health Insurance and Taiwan Environmental Protection Agency, this study investigates the documented daily visits of children to respiratory clinics during and after ADS that occurred from 1997 to 2007 among 12 districts across Taipei City by applying a Bayesian structural additive regressive model controlled for spatial and temporal patterns. This study finds that the significantly impact of elevated children's respiratory clinic visits happened after ADS. Five of the seven lagged days had increasing percentages of relative rate, which was consecutively elevated from a 2-day to a 5-day lag by 0.63%∼2.19% for preschool children (i.e., 0∼6 years of age) and 0.72%∼3.17% for school children (i.e., 7∼14 years of age). The spatial pattern of clinic visits indicated that geographical heterogeneity was possibly associated with the clinic's location and accessibility. Moreover, day-of-week effects were elevated on Monday, Friday, and Saturday. We concluded that ADS may significantly increase the risks of respiratory diseases consecutively in the week after exposure, especially in school children.
人们对沙尘暴（ADS）对人类健康的不良影响表示担忧；然而，很少有研究调查这些事件对儿童健康的影响。本研究利用台湾地区全民健康保险数据库和台湾地区环境保护署数据库，采用贝叶斯结构加回归模型，控制空间和时间模式，对 1997 年至 2007 年台北市 12 个地区发生的 ADS 期间和之后儿童前往呼吸道诊所就诊的记录日就诊情况进行了研究。本研究发现，沙尘暴后儿童呼吸道诊所就诊人数明显增加。在 7 天的滞后日中，有 5 天的相对增长率呈上升趋势，从 2 天滞后到 5 天滞后，学龄前儿童（0-6 岁）的相对增长率连续上升 0.63%至 2.19%，学龄儿童（7-14 岁）的相对增长率上升 0.72%至 3.17%。就诊的空间模式表明，地理位置的异质性可能与诊所的位置和可达性有关。此外，周一、周五和周六的日变化效应升高。我们的结论是，ADS 可能会显著增加暴露后一周内呼吸道疾病的风险，尤其是在学龄儿童中。
