Wang Chien-Ho, Chen Chin-Shyan, Lin Chung-Liang
a Department of Economics , National Taipei University , New Taipei City , Taiwan.
Glob Public Health. 2014;9(9):1040-52. doi: 10.1080/17441692.2014.951871. Epub 2014 Sep 3.
This study explores the relationship between Asian dust storms (ADSs), asthma hospital admissions and average medical cost discharge. We adopt the hospitalisation data from the Taiwan National Health Insurance research database covering the period from 2000 to 2009. The autoregressive integrated moving average with exogenous variables (ARIMAX) analyses were performed to explore the relationship between ADS and asthma hospital admissions, adjusting for temperature, air pollutants and season dummy. The results show that ADS events do generate a critical influence upon the occurrences of asthma on post-ADS events from days 1 through 3, with an average of 17-20 more hospitalised admissions, and have stronger effects on preschool children, middle-aged people and the elderly. From the perspective of medical expenses, the cost of hospitalised admissions for asthma substantially rises daily, on average, by NT$634,698 to NT$787,407 during ADS event days. This study suggests that government should establish a forecast and alert system and release warnings about dust storms, so that the individuals predisposed to asthma can take precautionary measures to reduce their outdoor exposure. Consequently, personal risk and medical expenditure could be reduced significantly, especially for preschool children, middle-aged people and the elderly with asthma.
本研究探讨亚洲沙尘暴（ADSs）、哮喘住院人数与平均出院医疗费用之间的关系。我们采用了台湾国民健康保险研究数据库中2000年至2009年期间的住院数据。进行了带有外生变量的自回归积分移动平均（ARIMAX）分析，以探讨ADS与哮喘住院人数之间的关系，并对温度、空气污染物和季节虚拟变量进行了调整。结果表明，ADS事件确实对ADS事件后第1天至第3天的哮喘发病产生了关键影响，平均住院人数增加了17 - 20人，并且对学龄前儿童、中年人和老年人的影响更大。从医疗费用的角度来看，在ADS事件期间，哮喘住院的费用平均每天大幅上涨新台币634,698元至787,407元。本研究建议政府应建立一个预测和警报系统，并发布沙尘暴预警，以便易患哮喘的个人能够采取预防措施减少户外暴露。因此，可以显著降低个人风险和医疗支出，特别是对于患有哮喘的学龄前儿童、中年人和老年人。
