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Effects of air pollution on lung function and symptoms of asthma, rhinitis and eczema in primary school children

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Abstract

Health effects of ambient air pollution were studied in three groups of schoolchildren living in areas (suburban, urban and urban-traffic) with different air pollution levels in Eskişehir, Turkey. This study involved 1,880 students aged between 9 and 13 years from 16 public primary schools. This two-season study was conducted from January 2008 through March 2009. Symptoms of asthma, rhinitis and eczema were determined by the International Study of Asthma and Allergies in Childhood questionnaire in 2008. Two lung function tests were performed by each child for summer and winter seasons with simultaneous ambient air measurements of ozone (O3), nitrogen dioxide (NO2) and sulfur dioxide (SO2) by passive sampling. Effects of air pollution on impaired lung function and symptoms in schoolchildren were estimated by multivariate logistic regression analyses. Girls with impaired lung function (only for the summer season evaluation) were more observed in suburban and urban areas when compared to urban-traffic area ([odds ratio (OR) = 1.49; 95 % confidence interval (CI) 1.04–2.14] and [OR = 1.69 (95 % CI 1.06–2.71)] for suburban vs. urban-traffic and urban vs. urban-traffic, respectively). Significant association between ambient ozone concentrations and impaired lung function (for an increase of 10 μg m−3) was found only for girls for the summer season evaluation [OR = 1.11 (95 % CI 1.03–1.19)]. No association was found for boys and for the winter season evaluation. No association was found between any of the measured air pollutants and symptoms of current wheeze, current rhinoconjunctivitis and current itchy rash. The results of this study showed that increasing ozone concentrations may cause a sub-acute impairment in lung function of school aged children.

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Acknowledgments

We would like to thank to the school directors and teachers for their very valuable help during the sampling studies. The authors are grateful to the children and their parents for their participation in this study. The authors would like to express their thanks to Akif Arı for his help during sampling campaigns and Nesimi Akyol for his help during data entry.

Funding

This study was part of the MATRA project “Together Towards Clean Air in Eskişehir and İskenderun, Turkey” financed by the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

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Author notes

  1. Sermin Örnektekin

    Present address: Molecular Biology and Genetics, Faculty of Science and Letters, İstanbul Kültür University, 34156, İstanbul, Turkey

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Environmental Engineering, Anadolu University, İki Eylül Campus, 26555, Eskişehir, Turkey

    Hicran Altuğ, Eftade O. Gaga, Tuncay Döğeroğlu & Özlem Özden

  2. Department of Chemistry, Faculty of Arts and Science, Mustafa Kemal University, 31040, Antakya, Turkey

    Sermin Örnektekin

  3. IRAS Institute for Risk Assessment Sciences, Utrecht University, Utrecht, The Netherlands

    Bert Brunekreef, Kees Meliefste & Gerard Hoek

  4. Royal Haskoning, Business line Industry and Energy, P.O. Box 151, 6500 AD, Nijmegen, The Netherlands

    Wim Van Doorn

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  1. Hicran Altuğ
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Correspondence to Tuncay Döğeroğlu.

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Altuğ, H., Gaga, E.O., Döğeroğlu, T. et al. Effects of air pollution on lung function and symptoms of asthma, rhinitis and eczema in primary school children. Environ Sci Pollut Res 20, 6455–6467 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-013-1674-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-013-1674-1

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