Impact of the State of Emergency during the COVID-19 Pandemic in 2020 on Asthma Exacerbations among Children in Kobe City, Japan

Hiroshi Yamaguchi, Kandai Nozu, Shinya Ishiko, Atsushi Kondo, Takeshi Ninchoji, China Nagano, Hiroki Takeda, Ai Unzaki, Kazuto Ishibashi, Ichiro Morioka, Hiroaki Nagase, Kazumoto Iijima and Akihito Ishida
Additional contact information
Hiroshi Yamaguchi: Department of Pediatrics, Kobe University Graduate School of Medicine, 7-5-2 Kusunoki-cho, Chuo-ku, Kobe 650-0017, Japan
Kandai Nozu: Department of Pediatrics, Kobe University Graduate School of Medicine, 7-5-2 Kusunoki-cho, Chuo-ku, Kobe 650-0017, Japan
Shinya Ishiko: Department of Pediatrics, Kobe University Graduate School of Medicine, 7-5-2 Kusunoki-cho, Chuo-ku, Kobe 650-0017, Japan
Atsushi Kondo: Department of Pediatrics, Kobe University Graduate School of Medicine, 7-5-2 Kusunoki-cho, Chuo-ku, Kobe 650-0017, Japan
Takeshi Ninchoji: Department of Pediatrics, Kobe University Graduate School of Medicine, 7-5-2 Kusunoki-cho, Chuo-ku, Kobe 650-0017, Japan
China Nagano: Department of Pediatrics, Kobe University Graduate School of Medicine, 7-5-2 Kusunoki-cho, Chuo-ku, Kobe 650-0017, Japan
Hiroki Takeda: Department of Pediatrics, Kobe University Graduate School of Medicine, 7-5-2 Kusunoki-cho, Chuo-ku, Kobe 650-0017, Japan
Ai Unzaki: Kobe Children’s Primary Emergency Medical Center, 1-4-1 Wakihamakaigandori, Chuo-ku, Kobe 651-0073, Japan
Kazuto Ishibashi: Kobe Children’s Primary Emergency Medical Center, 1-4-1 Wakihamakaigandori, Chuo-ku, Kobe 651-0073, Japan
Ichiro Morioka: Department of Pediatrics and Child Health, Nihon University School of Medicine, 30-1, Oyaguchi, Kami-cho, Itabashi-ku 173-8610, Japan
Hiroaki Nagase: Department of Pediatrics, Kobe University Graduate School of Medicine, 7-5-2 Kusunoki-cho, Chuo-ku, Kobe 650-0017, Japan
Kazumoto Iijima: Department of Pediatrics, Kobe University Graduate School of Medicine, 7-5-2 Kusunoki-cho, Chuo-ku, Kobe 650-0017, Japan
Akihito Ishida: Kobe Children’s Primary Emergency Medical Center, 1-4-1 Wakihamakaigandori, Chuo-ku, Kobe 651-0073, Japan

IJERPH, 2021, vol. 18, issue 21, 1-19

Abstract: The coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic altered environmental factors. We studied the impact of these changes on asthma exacerbation (AE) by comparing the AE-related environmental factors between COVID-19 (2020) and pre-COVID-19 (2011–2019) eras. Between 2011 and 2020, 278,465 children (<16 years old) visited our emergency department, and 7476 were diagnosed with AE. The number of patients showed spring and fall peaks in 2011–2019. Multivariate analyses showed significant positive relationships of the number of AE patients with the average temperature among all patients and 0–5-year-olds and with sulfur dioxide (SO 2 ) levels in 2011–2019 among 0–5-year-olds. Although the spring peak in the number of patients was not observed in 2020 after declaration of a state of emergency, the fall peak was again observed after the state of emergency was lifted. No changes in average temperature were detected, but SO 2 was significantly reduced following declaration of the state of emergency in 2020. Therefore, SO 2 reduction might have contributed to the disappearance of the peak of AE. However, a fall peak was observed again in 2020, although SO 2 levels continued to be low. These data suggest that person to person interaction seems to be associated with AE, presumably due to unknown viral infections.

Keywords: Asian dust; air pollution; coronavirus disease; meteorology; pollen; respiratory infection; social isolation; typhoon (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/18/21/11407/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/18/21/11407/ (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:18:y:2021:i:21:p:11407-:d:668318

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 ().