Diurnal Mortality and Air Pollution in the North Bohemia

Overview

Backgrounds.
Several studies have demonstrated that the increase of air pollutants is related to the increase ofthe diurnal mortality. The aim of the work was to find correlation among the diurnal mortality and changes in theconcentration of SO2, total suspended particles (TSP), and dust particles with aerodynamic diameter smaller than10 mm (PM10) and smaller than 2,5 mm (PM2,5) in the external air of the North Bohemian brown-coal basin.Methods and Results. All that died in 1982-1994 in coal-basin districts of the North Bohemia region were includedinto the data set. Method of long time series and the model of logistic regression were applied with correction tolong-term trends, seasons, respiratory diseases and meteorological condition. Investigating the described relationregardless to age and sex, the increase of TSP by 100 mg/m3was connected with significant increase of the totaldiurnal mortality by 3.4 %. Significant differences between males and females were found. Meanwhile the mortalityof males younger than 65 years increased, that of equally old females decreased. Contrary to it, in population offemales older than 65 mortality increased and that males significantly decreased.Conclusion. Monitoring of the diurnal mortality and air pollution in relation to the sex reveals important for theidentification of sensitive and vulnerable population subgroups. Illogic and difficult to explain is the decrease ofmortality in conditions of increased air pollutants. Authors recommend repeating the analysis also in differentepidemiological studies in order to distinguish whether the presented results are accidental or have a more generalsignificance.

Key words:
air pollution, diurnal mortality, sulfur oxides, volatile dust particles.