Source-Specific Volatile Organic Compounds and Emergency Hospital Admissions for Cardiorespiratory Diseases

Abstract

Knowledge gaps remain regarding the cardiorespiratory impacts of ambient volatile organic compounds (VOCs) for the general population. This study identified contributing sources to ambient VOCs and estimated the short-term effects of VOC apportioned sources on daily emergency hospital admissions for cardiorespiratory diseases in Hong Kong from 2011 to 2014. We estimated VOC source contributions using fourteen organic chemicals by positive matrix factorization. Then, we examined the associations between the short-term exposure to VOC apportioned sources and emergency hospital admissions for cause-specific cardiorespiratory diseases using generalized additive models with polynomial distributed lag models while controlling for meteorological and co-pollutant confounders. We identified six VOC sources: gasoline emissions, liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) usage, aged VOCs, architectural paints, household products, and biogenic emissions. We found that increased emergency hospital admissions for chronic obstructive pulmonary disease were positively linked to ambient VOCs from gasoline emissions (excess risk (ER%): 2.1%; 95% CI: 0.9% to 3.4%), architectural paints (ER%: 1.5%; 95% CI: 0.2% to 2.9%), and household products (ER%: 1.5%; 95% CI: 0.2% to 2.8%), but negatively associated with biogenic VOCs (ER%: −6.6%; 95% CI: −10.4% to −2.5%). Increased congestive heart failure admissions were positively related to VOCs from architectural paints and household products in cold seasons. This study suggested that source-specific VOCs might trigger the exacerbation of cardiorespiratory diseases.

Phytoremediation: The Sustainable Strategy for Improving Indoor and Outdoor Air Quality

“…Studies have emphasized the close link between air contaminants and human diseases involving the upper airway, pulmonary, cardiovascular, liver, respiratory, renal, autoimmune, skin, eye diseases, and diabetes. For example, data on VOCs was reported to be positively correlated with emergency hospital visits for chronic obstructive pulmonary diseases [26]. Another report also demonstrated that exposure to VOCs increased the pulmonary health risk through alteration of the gas-liquid interface properties of pulmonary surfactants [27].…”

The Association between Exposure to Residential Indoor Volatile Organic Compounds and Measures of Central Arterial Stiffness in Healthy Middle-Aged Men and Women

“…Exposure to environmental factors such as air pollution have previously been suggested to amplify the effect of traditional risk factors, such as blood pressure and smoking [ 1 , 2 ], on cardiovascular risk [ 3 , 4 ].…”

“…In ambient air, the most significant sources are from vehicle exhausts, while major indoor sources of VOCs include building materials and finishes (primarily flame retardants) such as paints and floor coverings made of, or containing, flexible plastics such as vinyl, engineered wood products, cleaning products and fragranced personal hygiene products [ 5 , 6 ]. Although VOCs detected in indoor environments are usually present at low concentrations, they have been associated with a range of adverse health effects including sensory and skin irritation, headaches, nausea, respiratory illness and cancer [ 4 , 5 , 6 , 7 ].…”

Machine learning–driven identification of early-life air toxic combinations associated with childhood asthma outcomes

“…In particular, exposure to air toxics early in life predisposes children to asthma, one of the most prevalent diseases in this demographic group. Epidemiologic studies have linked prenatal and early life exposure to air toxics with childhood wheeze, asthma, and altered lung function (6)(7)(8)(9)(10)(11)(12)(13)(14).…”

“…Asthma-related medication use, emergency room visits, and hospitalizations are frequently studied asthma outcomes that reflect asthma severity, control, and healthcare utilization (28)(29)(30). While some studies have reported associations between particular air toxics and these asthma subphenotypes (9,11,12), none addressed our goal to identify combinations of air toxics from a large national assessment of air toxics associated with these asthma outcomes. We tested our hypothesis by geocoding levels of 125 air toxic from the US Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) National Air Toxic Assessment (NATA) (31), one of the richest sources of multi-air toxic profiling across the US, to the residential addresses of children with asthma from our Airway in Asthma (ARIA) study (32) to map each child's exposure to air toxics during the first years of life.…”