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PARTICULATE MATTER AND RESPIRATORY ADMISSIONS AMONG U.S. VETERANS IN DENVER
Citation:
Neas, L M., Y. Huang, AND R B. Devlin. PARTICULATE MATTER AND RESPIRATORY ADMISSIONS AMONG U.S. VETERANS IN DENVER. Presented at 9th International ATS Meeting, San Francisco, CA, May 18-23, 2001.
Description:
Previous studies have found that ambient particulate matter levels were associated with respiratory admissions as a principal diagnosis. We examined this association among 17,933 admissions to the Denver VA Medical Center over a six-year period (1994-1999) after restricting to male residents of Colorado. Of these admissions, 1,187 had a primary respiratory diagnosis (ICD9 460-519), 2,610 had one or more secondary respiratory diagnoses and 309 had both primary and secondary respiratory diagnoses. Environmental data was obtained from EPA's Aerometric Information Retrieval System (AIRS) and meteorological data was obtained from the National Weather Service. Among the 2,610 admissions with underlying respiratory disease, a 15 mg/m3 increment in the two-day moving average of particular matter less than 10 microns (PM10) was associated with a 40 percent increase in the rate of respiratory admissions (95% CI 12.3% to 74.8%) after adjustment for trend, season, day of week, temperature, relative humidity, and precipitation. The association among all admissions with a primary respiratory diagnosis regardless of secondary conditions (n = 1,187) was much less (+2.2%, 95% CI -10.1% to 16.3%). Thus, subjects with underlying respiratory disease appear to be at increased risk of respiratory admissions related to exposures to ambient particulate matter.
This abstract does not necessarily represent EPA policy.
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency