David Kordit, Jennifer Toh,  Tulsi Desai, Sunit P. Jariwala

 

RATIONALE: To evaluate how asthma-related emergency department visits (AREDV), air pollutant levels, pollen counts, and weather variables
changed from 2001 to 2008 in the Bronx (NY).
METHODS: We collected daily AREDV values (01/01/2001 to 12/31/ 2008) using our institution’s Clinical Looking Glass software. Daily values
of temperature, humidity, carbon monoxide (CO), sulfur dioxide (SO2),ozone (O3), and nitrogen dioxide (NO2) were obtained from the National Climatic Data Center’s Bronx station.We obtained daily tree pollen counts from the Armonk counting station near the Bronx. We calculated median values for each variable, and used the Mann-Whitney test to compare 2001-2004 and 2005-2008 values. Due to seasonal variations of the variables, we considered each season separately regarding the 2001-2004 and 2005-2008 comparisons.
RESULTS: For AREDV, CO, SO2, and humidity, there were significant decreases for all seasons from 2001-2004 to 2005-2008 (all p<0.03), as
well as for NO2 in the spring (2001-2004: 43 ppm; 2005-2008: 42 ppm; p50.026) and winter (2001-2004: 41 ppm; 2005-2008: 39 ppm; p50.005). Significant increases occurred for O3 levels in the spring, fall,
and winter (all p<0.001), for temperature in the summer and winter (all p<0.05), and tree pollen in the spring (2001-2004: 102.5 grains/m3; 2005-2008: 155 grains/m3; p50.017).
CONCLUSIONS: From 2001 to 2008, we observed significant: a) decreases in median AREDV, CO, SO2, and humidity for all seasons, and decreases in NO2 for the spring and winter; and b) increases in median O3, temperature, and spring tree pollen. Correlation and time-series analyses are necessary to further characterize our findings.