Ambient PM₁₀ and respiratory illnesses in Colombo City, Sri Lanka

Abstract

Analysis of ambient air quality data monitored at Colombo Fort monitoring unit clearly revealed that PM₁₀ is the dominant air pollutant in the Colombo atmosphere. Further investigation showed that PM₁₀ has strong associations with three types of respiratory illnesses, especially among children. Among these associations, the disease category which includes bronchitis, emphysema and other chronic obstructive pulmonary diseases showed a prominent association with a correlation coefficient of 0.717 at 99% confidence. In addition, an application of health impact assessment software developed by WHO revealed that nearly 20% of Asthma patients recorded at LRH (the Lady Ridgeway Hospital for Children) in 2005 could be attributed to exposure to PM₁₀ in Colombo. It was observed that nearly 60% of the respiratory cases occurred at reasonably lower concentrations (below 80 μ gm^{− 3}) thus, future management plans aiming toward positive health impacts should focus on shifting the entire PM₁₀ pollution distribution towards lower ends.

Keywords:

• Air pollution
• PM₁₀
• health impact
• respiratory illnesses
• guidelines

Acknowledgments

The authors wish to thank the National Building Research Organization (NBRO), the Lady Ridgeway Hospital for Children (LRH) and the National Hospital of Sri Lanka (NHSL) for providing data free of charge and the Central Environmental Authority (CEA) for providing air quality data at a discounted rate. Moreover, the Norwegian Agency for Development Corporation (NORAD) is acknowledged for providing the research grant.

Notes

* Reference: Reports on indoor morbidity and mortality in hospitals.

*Correlation is significant at the 0.05 level (2-tailed).

**Correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed).

* Since the records on hospital admissions for respiratory diseases were not available, this figure shows the total LDs for respiratory diseases.