Short Term Impact of Air Pollution on Asthma Admission in Ulaanbaatar

Background: Asthma is a heterogeneous disease, usually characterized by chronic airway inflammation. The air quality is influenced by locations of the air pollution sources, their performance capacity, the technology used, the composition of waste generated and geographical and climate conditions. In this study, a time-series analysis was conducted to estimate the association of short-term exposure to ambient air pollutants and hospitalization due to asthma in Ulaanbaatar. Objectives: We estimate the short-term associations between daily changes in ambient air pollutants and daily asthma in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia. Methods: This is a time-series cross over study. All asthma hospital admission and air pollution data of 2008-2017 was used for this assessment. Data analyzed by using the program STATA-12. For testing the differences of the results were used appropriate non-parametric tests. Result: The daily mean of sulfur dioxide concentration was 35.22 mg/m3 in the cold season, which was 7.57 times higher than the mean of the hot season. The mean annual PM 10 concentration was 182.73 μg/m3. Most of the cases of asthma were among women, aged between 5 - 64 years old, registered during winter and spring. 3.8 people admitted to the hospital mostly on weekdays. In all Lag of SO2, in Lag of NO2, in all Lag of PM 10, in PM 2.5 and in all Lag except for Lag 2 of CO, Lag 0 - 2 of O3 the incidence is likely to increase by 0.3% - 6.1% per 10 units of pollutants. Conclusion: The air pollution especially PM 10, PM 2.5, and CO are the most harmful air pollutants to asthma in Ulaanbaatar. The correlation mainly between asthma admission cases with meteorological parameters is because of the cold winter condition.