Department of Environmental and Occupational Health, School of Public Health, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX 77843, USA.
Center for Outcomes Research, Houston Methodist Research Institute, Houston, TX 77030, USA.
Int J Environ Res Public Health. 2020 May 27;17(11):3812. doi: 10.3390/ijerph17113812.
Although hospital length of stay (LOS) has been identified as a proxy measure of healthcare expenditures in the United States, there are limited studies investigating the potentially important association between outdoor air pollution and LOS for pediatric asthma. This study aims to examine the effect of ambient air pollution on LOS among children with asthma in South Texas. It included retrospective data on 711 children aged 5-18 years old admitted for asthma to a pediatric tertiary care hospital in South Texas between 2010 and 2014. Air pollution data including particulate matter (PM) and ozone were collected from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The multivariate binomial logistic regression analyses were performed to determine the association between each air pollutant and LOS, controlling for confounders. The regression models showed the increased ozone level was significantly associated with prolonged LOS in the single- and two-pollutant models ( < 0.05). Furthermore, in the age-stratified models, PM was positively associated with LOS among children aged 5-11 years old ( < 0.05). In conclusion, this study revealed a concerning association between ambient air pollution and LOS for pediatric asthma in South Texas.
尽管在美国，医院住院时间（LOS）已被确定为医疗支出的替代指标，但关于室外空气污染与儿科哮喘 LOS 之间潜在重要关联的研究有限。本研究旨在调查南德克萨斯州儿童哮喘 LOS 与环境空气污染之间的关系。该研究纳入了 2010 年至 2014 年期间在南德克萨斯州一家儿科三级保健医院因哮喘入院的 711 名 5-18 岁儿童的回顾性数据。空气污染数据包括美国疾病控制与预防中心收集的颗粒物（PM）和臭氧。进行了多变量二项逻辑回归分析，以确定每种空气污染物与 LOS 之间的关联，同时控制混杂因素。回归模型显示，在单污染物和双污染物模型中，臭氧水平升高与 LOS 延长显著相关（<0.05）。此外，在年龄分层模型中，PM 与 5-11 岁儿童的 LOS 呈正相关（<0.05）。总之，这项研究揭示了南德克萨斯州儿童哮喘 LOS 与环境空气污染之间令人担忧的关联。
