Health effects of air pollution exposure on children and adolescents in São Paulo, Brazil

Abstract

Children and adolescents have been considered more susceptible to the effects of air pollution than adults. In order to investigate the responses of children of different ages to air pollution exposure, daily records of hospital admissions for children in five age groups (equal or less than 2 years of age, 3–5, 6–13, 14–19, and all ages together, i.e., from 0–19 years of age) were obtained from January 1993 to November 1997 in São Paulo, Brazil, and were compared to daily records of PM₁₀, O₃, SO₂, CO and NO₂ concentrations in ambient air. For each age group a generalized additive Poisson regression was fitted controlling for smooth functions of time, temperature, humidity, and days of the week, with an additional indicator for holidays. Polynomial distributed lag models were used to estimate the 7-day cumulative effect of each pollutant. Children 2 years or less were the most susceptible to the effects of all five pollutants with an increase of 9.4% (95% CI: 7.9,10.9) in respiratory admissions associated with each interquartile range increase in PM₁₀. The oldest group was the second most susceptible to air pollutants, with each interquartile range increase in PM₁₀ associated with a 5.1% (95% CI: 0.3,9.8) increase in respiratory admissions. An interquartile range increase in CO was associated with an 11.3% (95% CI: 5.9,16.8) increase in respiratory hospitalizations. When a multipollutant model was used, the effect of PM₁₀ on respiratory admissions for all ages together was unchanged, while the SO₂ and the other pollutants effect was substantially reduced. This study showed that daily respiratory hospital admissions for children and adolescents in São Paulo increased with air pollution, and that the largest effects were found for the youngest (2 years or less) and oldest (14–19 years) age groups. Pediatr Pulmonol. 2001; 31:106–113.