Source-Specific Volatile Organic Compounds and Emergency Hospital Admissions for Cardiorespiratory Diseases

Jinjun Ran, Marianthi-Anna Kioumourtzoglou, Shengzhi Sun, Lefei Han, Shi Zhao, Wei Zhu, Jinhui Li and Linwei Tian
Additional contact information
Jinjun Ran: School of Public Health, The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China
Marianthi-Anna Kioumourtzoglou: Department of Environmental Health Sciences, Columbia University, New York, NY 10027, USA
Shengzhi Sun: School of Public Health, The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China
Lefei Han: School of Nursing, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hong Kong, China
Shi Zhao: JC School of Public Health and Primary Care, Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China
Wei Zhu: Department of Toxicology, Guangzhou Center for Disease Control and Prevention, Guangzhou 510440, China
Jinhui Li: School of Public Health, The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China
Linwei Tian: School of Public Health, The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China

IJERPH, 2020, vol. 17, issue 17, 1-13

Abstract: Knowledge gaps remain regarding the cardiorespiratory impacts of ambient volatile organic compounds (VOCs) for the general population. This study identified contributing sources to ambient VOCs and estimated the short-term effects of VOC apportioned sources on daily emergency hospital admissions for cardiorespiratory diseases in Hong Kong from 2011 to 2014. We estimated VOC source contributions using fourteen organic chemicals by positive matrix factorization. Then, we examined the associations between the short-term exposure to VOC apportioned sources and emergency hospital admissions for cause-specific cardiorespiratory diseases using generalized additive models with polynomial distributed lag models while controlling for meteorological and co-pollutant confounders. We identified six VOC sources: gasoline emissions, liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) usage, aged VOCs, architectural paints, household products, and biogenic emissions. We found that increased emergency hospital admissions for chronic obstructive pulmonary disease were positively linked to ambient VOCs from gasoline emissions (excess risk (ER%): 2.1%; 95% CI: 0.9% to 3.4%), architectural paints (ER%: 1.5%; 95% CI: 0.2% to 2.9%), and household products (ER%: 1.5%; 95% CI: 0.2% to 2.8%), but negatively associated with biogenic VOCs (ER%: −6.6%; 95% CI: −10.4% to −2.5%). Increased congestive heart failure admissions were positively related to VOCs from architectural paints and household products in cold seasons. This study suggested that source-specific VOCs might trigger the exacerbation of cardiorespiratory diseases.

Keywords: volatile organic compounds; source apportionment; cardiovascular disease; respiratory disease; emergency hospital admissions (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: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/17/17/6210/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/17/17/6210/ (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:17:p:6210-:d:404660

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 ().