Tracheitis hospital admissions are associated with Asia dust storm

ABSTRACT

The risks of tracheitis have been widely studied, but no investigation has yet to assess the impact of air pollutants on tracheitis hospital admissions. This research explores the relationship between Asia dust storm (ADS) and tracheitis hospital admissions, by using a Poisson time-series model on the 2000–2012 National Health Insurance Research Database (NHIRB) from Taiwan and linking air pollutants and temperature data. From a total of 126,013 tracheitis hospital admissions, the average number of daily tracheitis hospital admissions is 26.53 and increases 10% notably one day after ADS. The empirical result shows that ADS does significantly affect tracheitis hospital admissions 3 and 5 days after an event for the overall sample and 2–4 days after it for females. For the age group <45, the number significantly increases 3–4 days after ADS, revealing that ADS has a prolonged effect on tracheitis hospital admissions.

KEYWORDS:

• Asia dust storm
• tracheitis
• hospital admissions

Disclosure statement

No conflict of interest.