BACKGROUNDThe aim of this study was to investigate the associations between ambient air pollution and emergency department (ED) visits for depression.METHODSHealth data were retrieved from the National Ambulatory Care Reporting System. ED visits for depression were retrieved from the National Ambulatory Care Reporting System using the International Classification of Diseases (ICD-10), Tenth revision codes; ICD-10: F32 (mild depressive episode) and ICD-10: F33 (recurrent depressive disorder). A case-crossover design was employed for this study. Conditional logistic regression models were used to estimate odds ratios.RESULTSFor females, exposure to ozone was associated with increased risk of an ED visit for depression between 1 and 7 days after exposure, for males, between 1 and 5, and 8 days after exposure, with odds ratios ranging between 1.02 and 1.03.CONCLUSIONSThese findings suggest that, as hypothesized, there is a positive association between exposure to air pollution and ED visits for depression.

Increasing evidence suggests that ambient air pollution is a major risk factor for both acute and chronic respiratory disease exacerbations and emergencies. The objective of this study was to determine the association between ambient air pollutants and emergency department (ED) visits for respiratory conditions in nine districts across the province of Ontario in Canada. Health, air pollutant (PM, NO, O, and SO), and meteorological data were retrieved from April 2004 to December 2011. Respiratory diseases were categorized as: chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD, including bronchiectasis) and acute upper respiratory diseases. A case-crossover design was used to test the associations between ED visits and ambient air pollutants, stratified by sex and season. For COPD among males, positive results were observed for NO with lags of 3-6 days, for PM with lags 1-8, and for SO with lags of 4-8 days. For COPD among females, positive results were observed for O with lags 2-4 days, and for SO among lags of 3-6 days. For upper respiratory disease emergencies among males, positive results were observed for NO (lags 5-8 days), for O, (lags 0-6 days), PM (all lags), and SO (lag 8), and among females, positive results were observed for NO for lag 8 days, for O, PM among all lags. Our study provides evidence of the associations between short-term exposure to air pollution and increased risk of ED visits for upper and lower respiratory diseases in an environment where air pollutant concentrations are relatively low.

Objectives: The purpose of this study was to examine the associations between emergency department (ED) visits for conjunctivitis and ambient air pollution levels in urban regions across the province of Ontario, Canada. Material and Methods: Information from the National Ambulatory Care Reporting System was used to create time-series records, for the period of April 2004 to December 2011, on emergency department visits of patients suffering from conjunctivitis. A total of 77 439 emergency department visits for conjunctivitis were analyzed. A time-stratified case-crossover design was applied, completed with meta-analysis in order to pool inter-city results. Odds ratio (OR) for an emergency department visit was calculated in different population strata per one-unit increase (one interquartile range -IQR increase in a pollutant's daily level) while controlling for the impacts of temperature and relative humidity. Results: Statistically significant positive results were observed in the female population sample, for nitrogen dioxide (NO 2 ) exposure lagged 5-8 days, with the highest result for the 7-day lag (OR = 1.035, 95% CI: 1.018-1.052) and for fine particulate matter with a median aerodynamic diameter of less than 2.5 μm (PM 2.5 ), for lags 6 and 7 days, with the highest result for lag 7 (OR = 1.017, 95% CI: 1.003-1.031). In the male population sample, statistically significant positive results were observed for NO 2 at lag 5 days (OR = 1.024, 95% CI: 1.004-1.045) and for ozone (O 3 ), at lags 0-3 and 7 days, with the highest result for lag 0 (OR = 1.038, 95% CI: 1.012-1.056). Also for males, statistically significant results were observed in the case of PM 2.5 exposure lagged by 5 days (OR = 1.003, 95% CI: 1.000-1.038) and sulfur dioxide (SO 2 ) exposure lagged by 1 and 2 days (OR = 1.016, 95% CI: 1.000-1.031 and OR = 1.018, 95% CI: 1.002-1.033). Conclusions: The findings of this study suggest that there are associations between levels of air pollution and ED visits for conjunctivitis, with different temporal trends and strength of association by age, sex, and season. include blurred vision, sensitivity to light, pain, foreign body sensations, itching, burning, discharges, and inability to tolerate contact lenses [40]. The conjunctiva is continuously bathed in a tear film, which acts as both a lubricant for eye movement and a protective barrier to dilute and remove harmful environmental impurities. Higher levels of ambient air pollution have been correlated with adverse effects on the tear film, ocular mucosa, ocular surface, and eyelid margins [30,36,39,[48][49][50]. Several population studies have examined the associations between air pollution levels and ED visits for eye diseases [17,21,23,24]. To our knowledge, no multi-city studies have investigated this link for cities in North America. Filling this gap in the epidemiologic literature is important; multi-city studies are known to give more reliable results, less liable to biases in comparison to studies concerned with individual urban centers [51...

Ambient air pollution exposure has been associated with several health conditions, limited not only to respiratory and cardiovascular systems but also to cutaneous tissues. However, few epidemiological studies examined pollution exposure on skin problems. Basically, the common mechanism by which pollution may affect skin physiology is by induction of oxidative stress and inflammation. Urticaria is among the skin pathologies that have been associated with pollution. Based on the combined effects of three ambient air pollutants, ozone (O₃), nitrogen dioxide (NO₂), and fine particulate matter (PM) with a median aerodynamic diameter of less than 2.5 μm (PM(2.5)), on mortality, the Air Quality Health Index (AQHI) in Canada was developed. The aim of this study was to examine the associations of short-term changes in AQHI with emergency department (ED) visits for urticaria in Windsor-area hospitals in Canada. Diagnosed ED visits were retrieved from the National Ambulatory Care Reporting System (NACRS). A time-stratified case-crossover design was applied to 2905 ED visits (males = 1215; females = 1690) for urticaria from April 2004 through December 2010. Odds ratios (OR) and their corresponding 95% confidence intervals (95%CI) for ED visits associated with increase by one unit of risk index were calculated employing conditional logistic regression. Positive and significant results were observed between AQHI levels and OR for ED visits for urticaria in Windsor for lags 2 and 3 days. A distributed lag nonlinear model technique was applied to daily counts of ED visits for lags 0 to 10 and significant results were obtained from lag 2 to lag 5 and for lag 9. These findings demonstrated associations between ambient air pollution and urticarial confirming that air pollution affects skin conditions.