School of Public Health and Community Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, University of New South Wales, Level 3, Samuels Building, Botany Road, Kensington, New South Wales 2052, Australia; Environmental Health Institute, National Environment Agency, 40 Scotts Road, #13-00, Singapore 228231, Singapore.
School of Biological Sciences, Nanyang Technological University, 60 Nanyang Drive, Singapore 637551, Singapore.
Sci Total Environ. 2020 Oct 20;740:140129. doi: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2020.140129. Epub 2020 Jun 11.
Urban air quality in South-East Asia is influenced by local and transboundary sources of air pollutants. Research studies have well characterized the short-term effects of air pollution on cardiovascular and respiratory health but less so on ocular health. We investigated the relationship between air pollution and acute conjunctivitis in Singapore, a tropical city-state located in South-East Asia.
Assuming a negative-binomial distribution, we examined the short-term associations between all-cause acute conjunctivitis reports from 2009 to 2018 and contemporaneous ambient air pollutant concentrations using a time-series analysis. In separate pollutant models for PM and PM, we fitted fractional polynomials to investigate the linearity between air pollutant exposures and conjunctivitis, adjusting for long-term trend, seasonality, climate variability, public holidays, immediate and lagged exposure effects, and autocorrelation.
There were 261,959 acute conjunctivitis reports over the study period. Every 10 μg/m increase in PM was associated with a 3.8% (Incidence Rate Ratio (IRR): 1.038, 95% Confidence Interval (CI): 1.029-1.046, p < 0.001) cumulative increase in risk of conjunctivitis over the present and subsequent week. Every 10 μg/m increase in PM was associated with a 2.9% (Incidence Rate Ratio (IRR): 1.029, 95% Confidence Interval (CI): 1.022-1.036, p < 0.001) cumulative increase in risk of conjunctivitis over the present and subsequent week. Acute conjunctivitis reports exhibited an inverse dependence on ambient air temperature and relative humidity variability. Approximately 3% of all acute conjunctivitis reports were attributable to PM. Particulate matter attributed acute conjunctivitis was disproportionately higher during transboundary haze episodes.
Our study strengthens the evidence linking particulate matter exposure to an increased risk of conjunctival disease, with a disproportionately higher disease burden during South-East Asia transboundary haze episodes. Our findings underscore the importance of reducing the health impact of indigenous and transboundary sources of ambient particulate matter pollution.
东南亚城市的空气质量受到本地和跨境空气污染物源的影响。研究表明，空气污染对心血管和呼吸系统健康的短期影响已经得到很好的描述，但对眼部健康的影响则相对较少。我们调查了新加坡（位于东南亚的一个热带城邦）的空气污染与急性结膜炎之间的关系。
假设负二项分布，我们使用时间序列分析，研究了 2009 年至 2018 年期间所有原因急性结膜炎报告与同期环境空气污染物浓度之间的短期关联。在 PM 和 PM 的单独污染物模型中，我们拟合了分数多项式，以研究空气污染暴露与结膜炎之间的线性关系，同时调整了长期趋势、季节性、气候变异性、公共假期、即时和滞后暴露效应以及自相关。
在研究期间，共有 261959 例急性结膜炎报告。PM 每增加 10μg/m，与当前和随后一周结膜炎风险增加 3.8%（发病率比（IRR）：1.038，95%置信区间（CI）：1.029-1.046，p<0.001）相关。PM 每增加 10μg/m，与当前和随后一周结膜炎风险增加 2.9%（IRR：1.029，95%CI：1.022-1.036，p<0.001）相关。急性结膜炎报告与环境空气温度和相对湿度变异性呈反比关系。约 3%的急性结膜炎报告归因于 PM。在跨境烟雾事件期间，颗粒物引起的急性结膜炎所占比例更高。
我们的研究加强了暴露于颗粒物与结膜疾病风险增加之间的联系，在东南亚跨境烟雾事件期间，疾病负担的比例更高。我们的研究结果强调了减少本地和跨境环境颗粒物污染对健康影响的重要性。
