Changing weather conditions and air pollution can lead to a significant health risk in children. The comparative impact of different environmental exposures on childhood allergic diseases still remains unclear.

The study was done to evaluate the relative impact of meteorological factors and air pollutants on allergic diseases of children in Shanghai, China. Information on clinical visits due to childhood asthma, allergic rhinitis (AR) and atopic dermatitis (AD) from 2007 to 2017 in Shanghai was collected from Shanghai Childrens Medical Center and Xinhua Hospital. The meteorological data including daily mean temperature and difference, air pressure and difference, precipitation, relative humidity, sunshine and wind speed for the given period were obtained from the Shanghai Meteorological Center. Air pollution data (PM10, PM2.5, NO2, SO2 and O3) were given by the Shanghai Environmental Protection Agency. Quasi-Poisson regression with distributed lag non-linear models and Poisson regression were combined with universal linear models and used to evaluate the relative impact of meteorological factors and air pollutants on allergic diseases of children.

A total of 2,410,392 cases of childhood allergic diseases, including 975,771 asthma, 646,975 AR and 787,646 AD were included. Most of environmental factors were suggestively associated with childhood allergic diseases. Daily mean temperature and air pressure plays an important role than other environmental factors in the events of these allergic diseases. The numbers of these allergic diseases attributed to an interquartile range change (IQR) in meteorological factors and also seemed to be greater than those attributed to an IQR change in air pollutants.

The findings of this study concluded that both climatic variation and air pollution are associated with allergic diseases of childhood but the climatic changes seem to play an important role in the occurrence of these diseases. These outcomes have significant suggestions for the development of custom-made strategies to prevent the increasing diseases worldwide.

Source: Hu Y, Xu Z, Jiang F3, et al. Relative impact of meteorological factors and air pollutants on childhood allergic diseases in Shanghai, China. Sci Total Environ. 2020 Mar 1; 706:135975