The Interactive Effects between Drought and Air Pollutants on Children’s Upper Respiratory Tract Infection: A Time-Series Analysis in Gansu, China

Yanlin Li, Jianyun Sun, Ruoyi Lei, Jie Zheng, Xiaoyu Tian, Baode Xue and Bin Luo ()
Additional contact information
Yanlin Li: Institute of Occupational Health and Environmental Health, School of Public Health, Lanzhou University, Lanzhou 730000, China
Jianyun Sun: Gansu Provincial Centre for Diseases Prevention and Control, Lanzhou 730000, China
Ruoyi Lei: Institute of Occupational Health and Environmental Health, School of Public Health, Lanzhou University, Lanzhou 730000, China
Jie Zheng: Institute of Occupational Health and Environmental Health, School of Public Health, Lanzhou University, Lanzhou 730000, China
Xiaoyu Tian: Institute of Occupational Health and Environmental Health, School of Public Health, Lanzhou University, Lanzhou 730000, China
Baode Xue: Institute of Occupational Health and Environmental Health, School of Public Health, Lanzhou University, Lanzhou 730000, China
Bin Luo: Institute of Occupational Health and Environmental Health, School of Public Health, Lanzhou University, Lanzhou 730000, China

IJERPH, 2023, vol. 20, issue 3, 1-14

Abstract: As a destructive and economic disaster in the world, drought shows an increasing trend under the continuous global climate change and adverse health effects have been reported. The interactive effects between drought and air pollutants, which may also be harmful to respiratory systems, remain to be discussed. We built the generalized additive model (GAM) and distributed lag nonlinear model (DLNM) to estimate the effects of drought and air pollutants on daily upper respiratory infections (URTI) outpatient visits among children under 6 in three cities of Gansu province. The Standardized Precipitation Index (SPI) based on monthly precipitation (SPI-1) was used as an indicator of drought. A non-stratified model was established to explore the interaction effect of SPI-1 and air pollutants. We illustrated the number of daily pediatric URTI outpatient visits increased with the decrease in SPI-1. The interactive effects between air pollutants and the number of daily pediatric URTIs were significant. According to the non-stratified model, we revealed highly polluted and drought environments had the most significant impact on URTI in children. The occurrence of drought and air pollutants increased URTI in children and exhibited a significant interactive effect.

Keywords: drought; URTI; SPI; air pollutants; GAM; DLNM (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/20/3/1959/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/20/3/1959/ (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:20:y:2023:i:3:p:1959-:d:1042688

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 ().