Ecological study on the impact of the exposure to atmospheric pollutants on the respiratory and cardiovascular tracts diseases morbidity and mortality

Abstract

The atmospheric pollutant caused by the burning of biomass and fossil fuels is a problem that ravages the whole world, and that is why is has been the target of constant studies. Several recent papers have assessed the adverse effects of air pollutants on the population health, including mortality, hospital admission and emergency assistance rates caused by cardiovascular and respiratory diseases, among others. However, there still are no data available on the city of Piracicaba (SP) and other medium sized cities in the region, which is rich in the production of sugar and ethanol. Therefore, this paper aims at the assessment of the impact of the exposure to air pollutants in the mortality rates for respiratory and cardiovascular diseases in the city of Piracicaba, SP. This shall be a time series exploratory ecological study with data regarding health (hospital admission and mortality rate for circulatory and respiratory tracts diseases) and air pollutants (CO, O3, NOx e PM2.5), obtained from public databases. In order to correlate the variants and estimate the outcomes risks according to the exposure to the different air pollutants, the Poisson (MAG) regression, the Pearson correlation and the Fuzzy logic tools shall be used. The results obtained will be able to guide the city and state health services in the environmental pollution control and in the prevention of hospital admissions and deaths for diseases associated to the circulatory and respiratory diseases, by developing a predictive model for the medium sized cities, such as Piracicaba. (AU)