Benefits of Improving Air Quality on Children' Health in Taiyuan

Objectives To establish a concentration-response relationships between the level of SO₂ and PM₁₀ with the daily number of visits in an outpatient service of pediatric department in Taiyuan in 2001—2010, and to estimate the benefit from the improvement of air quality.Methods The number of visits in the outpatient service of pediatric department was collected from a general hospital in Taiyuan. The data of daily SO₂ and PM₁₀ level in Jianhe Station was collected from Taiyuan Environment Monitoring Central Station. Meteorological data was provided by Shanxi Meteorological Service. The concentration-response function (CRF) was estimated by using a generalized additive modeling (GAM) with natural log link function, while the changing point in the curve of CRF was determined by a multiple structural break point test. Then, the risk for children visiting the outpatient service of the pediatric department was estimated by different segments of CRF and the extra risk from air pollution and the calculation of benefits from improving air quality was based on the WHO Air Quality Guidelines (Global update 2005) and the National Ambient Air Quality Standards (GB 3095-2012).Results The level of SO₂ and PM₁₀ in the ambient air of Taiyuan city was significantly decreased in 2003 and 2007, respectively. Compared with the secondary national standard limits, the extra risk of increasing outpatient in the pediatric department for SO₂ exposure in Taiyuan was 11.3% in 2001—2002, 2.5% in 2003 and 1.1% in 2004—2010. Meanwhile, the extra risk for increasing outpatient visits in the pediatric department for PM₁₀ exposure was 3.1% in 2001—2002, 2.2% in 2003-2006 and 0.7% in 2007—2010. Based on the WHO Air Quality Guideline, the risk of SO₂ exposure on outpatient visits in pediatric department was reduced 57.9% in 2003 compared with the years in 2001—2002, while the risk of PM₁₀ exposure on outpatient in the pediatric department reduced 52.3% in 2007—2010 compared with the years in 2005—2006.Conclusion The improvement of air quality might reduce the risk of children visiting outpatient service of pediatric department.