Ambient air pollution and emergency department visits for skin conditions

Abstract

Little is known regarding the epidemiology of acute skin/eye infectionand inflammations and their link to ambient air pollution; however,skin/eye problems are among the most frequent health complaints seen byemergency physicians. The authors explored links between previous dayexposures to ambient ozone and the daily visits to emergency departments(ED) for inflammation or infections in the outer layers of the skin oreyelid. The study was based on ED visits that took place in Edmonton,Canada, during the period of April 1992 to March 2002, where 1.4% ofpatients presented with these conditions. A case-crossover design wasused to compute the odds ratio (OR) and its 95% confidence interval(CI) of a skin emergency when two exposure doses differed by apredefined unit (here, interquartile range of daily ozone concentration= 14 ppb). The most noticeable results for all patients were: skinrash/eruption, lag 0 days (OR=1.17; 95%CI: 1.06, 1.30);dermatitis/eczema, lag 2 days (OR=1.15; 95%CI: 1.06, 1.25); urticaria,lag 4 days (OR=1.11; 95%CI: 1.03, 1.20); unspecified conjunctivitis,lag 5 days (OR=1.11; 95%CI: 1.04, 1.18). As for male patients, theresult was dermatitis/eczema, lag 2 days (OR=1.15; 95% CI: 1.02, 1.30).As for female patients, the results were rash/eruption, lag 0 days(OR=1.23; 95%CI: 1.08, 1.41); dermatitis/eczema, lag 2 days (OR=1.16;95%CI: 1.04, 1.30); urticaria, lag 4 days (OR=1.19; 95%CI: 1.08,1.31); and unspecified conjunctivitis, lag 7 days (OR=1.20; 95% CI:1.09, 1.32). Exposure to ambient ozone may emerge as a mediator of acutesymptoms of diseases affecting the protective outer layers of the skinand eye conjunctiva.