Ambient Air Quality and Emergency Hospital Admissions in Singapore: A Time-Series Analysis

Andrew Fu Wah Ho (), Zhongxun Hu, Ting Zhen Cheryl Woo, Kenneth Boon Kiat Tan, Jia Hao Lim, Maye Woo, Nan Liu, Geoffrey G. Morgan, Marcus Eng Hock Ong and Joel Aik
Additional contact information
Andrew Fu Wah Ho: Department of Emergency Medicine, Singapore General Hospital, Singapore 168753, Singapore
Zhongxun Hu: Duke-NUS Medical School, Singapore 169857, Singapore
Ting Zhen Cheryl Woo: Ministry of Health Holdings, Singapore 099253, Singapore
Kenneth Boon Kiat Tan: Department of Emergency Medicine, Singapore General Hospital, Singapore 168753, Singapore
Jia Hao Lim: Department of Emergency Medicine, Singapore General Hospital, Singapore 168753, Singapore
Maye Woo: Environmental Quality Monitoring Department, Environmental Monitoring and Modelling Division, National Environment Agency, Singapore 228231, Singapore
Nan Liu: Duke-NUS Medical School, Singapore 169857, Singapore
Geoffrey G. Morgan: Sydney School of Public Health, University of Sydney, Sydney, NSW 2006, Australia
Marcus Eng Hock Ong: Department of Emergency Medicine, Singapore General Hospital, Singapore 168753, Singapore
Joel Aik: Pre-Hospital and Emergency Research Centre, Duke-NUS Medical School, Singapore 169857, Singapore

IJERPH, 2022, vol. 19, issue 20, 1-12

Abstract: Air pollution exposure may increase the demand for emergency healthcare services, particularly in South-East Asia, where the burden of air-pollution-related health impacts is high. This article aims to investigate the association between air quality and emergency hospital admissions in Singapore. Quasi-Poisson regression was applied with a distributed lag non-linear model (DLNM) to assess the short-term associations between air quality variations and all-cause, emergency admissions from a major hospital in Singapore, between 2009 and 2017. Higher concentrations of SO 2 , PM 2.5 , PM 10 , NO 2 , and CO were positively associated with an increased risk of (i) all-cause, (ii) cardiovascular-related, and (iii) respiratory-related emergency admissions over 7 days. O 3 concentration increases were associated with a non-linear decrease in emergency admissions. Females experienced a higher risk of emergency admissions associated with PM 2.5 , PM 10 , and CO exposure, and a lower risk of admissions with NO 2 exposure, compared to males. The older adults (≥65 years) experienced a higher risk of emergency admissions associated with SO 2 and O 3 exposure compared to the non-elderly group. We found significant positive associations between respiratory disease- and cardiovascular disease-related emergency hospital admissions and ambient SO 2 , PM 2.5 , PM 10 , NO 2 , and CO concentrations. Age and gender were identified as effect modifiers of all-cause admissions.

Keywords: environmental epidemiology; air pollution; haze; air quality; emergency department; admission (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/19/20/13336/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/19/20/13336/ (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:19:y:2022:i:20:p:13336-:d:943659

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 ().