Association between ozone exposure and prevalence of mumps: a time-series study in a Megacity of Southwest China

Abstract

In the present study, we aim to evaluate the delayed and cumulative effect of ozone (O3) exposure on mumps in a megacity with high population density and high humidity. We took Chongqing, a megacity in Southwest China, as the research area and 2013–2017 as the research period. A total of 49,258 confirmed mumps cases were collected from 122 hospitals of Chongqing. We employed the distributed lag nonlinear models with quasi-Poisson link to investigate the relationship between prevalence of mumps and O3 exposure after adjusting for the effects of meteorological conditions. The results show that the effect of O3 exposure on mumps was mainly manifested in the lag of 0–7 days. The single-day ;lag effect was the most obvious on the 4th day, with the relative risk (RR) of mumps occurs of 1.006 (95% CI: 1.003–1.007) per 10 μg/m3 in the O3 exposure. The cumulative RR within 7 days was 1.025 (95% CI: 1.013–1.038). Our results suggest that O3 exposure can increase the risk of mumps infection, which fills the gap of relevant research in mountainous areas with high population density and high humidity.