Effects of Ultrafine Particles in Ambient Air on Primary Health Care Consultations for Diabetes in Children and Elderly Population in Ljubljana, Slovenia: A 5-Year Time-Trend Study

Vesna Viher Hrženjak, Andreja Kukec, Ivan Eržen and Dalibor Stanimirović
Additional contact information
Vesna Viher Hrženjak: National Laboratory of Health, Environment and Food, Prvomajska 1, 2000 Maribor, Slovenia
Andreja Kukec: Faculty of Medicine, University of Ljubljana, Vrazov trg 2, 1000 Ljubljana, Slovenia
Ivan Eržen: Faculty of Medicine, University of Ljubljana, Vrazov trg 2, 1000 Ljubljana, Slovenia
Dalibor Stanimirović: National Institute of Public Health, Trubarjeva 2, 1000 Ljubljana, Slovenia

IJERPH, 2020, vol. 17, issue 14, 1-19

Abstract: Epidemiological studies indicate that exposure to ultrafine particles (UFP) in ambient air represents an important environmental public health issue. The aim of this study was to determine the association between UFP in ambient air and the daily number of consultations in the primary health care unit due to diabetes mellitus in children and elderly population of the Municipality of Ljubljana. A 5-year time-trend ecological study was carried out for the period between 1 January 2013 and 31 December 2017. The daily number of primary health care consultations due to diabetes mellitus among children and elderly population was observed as the health outcome. Daily mean UFP concentrations (different size from 10 to 100 nm) were measured and calculated. Poisson regression analysis was used to investigate the association between the observed outcome and the daily UFP, particulate matter fine fraction (PM 2.5 ), and particulate matter coarse fraction (PM 10 ) concentrations, adjusted to other covariates. The results show that the daily number of consultations due to diabetes mellitus were highly significantly associated with the daily concentrations of UFP (10 to 20 nm; p ≤ 0.001 and 20 to 30 nm; p ≤ 0.001) in all age groups and in the elderly population. In observed the population of children, we did not confirm the association. Findings indicate that specified environmental challenges should be addressed by comprehensive public health strategies leading to the coordinated cross-sectoral measures for the reduction of UFP in ambient air and the mitigation of adverse health effects.

Keywords: air pollution; ultrafine particles; diabetes; health effects; time-trend study; Slovenia (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/17/14/4970/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/17/14/4970/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:17:y:2020:i:14:p:4970-:d:382721

Access Statistics for this article

IJERPH is currently edited by Ms. Jenna Liu

More articles in IJERPH from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().