Short-term exposure to air pollution and occurrence of emergency stroke in Chongqing, China

This study aimed to study the relationship between air pollution and stroke (especially emergency stroke) in different regions and determine which air pollutant is the most significantly associated with stroke. The number of patients with emergency stroke, air pollutant data and related meteorological indicators were collected from December 2013 to May 2018 for large comprehensive hospitals in Chongqing. The generalized additive model was used to analyse the relationship between air pollution and emergency stroke. After analysis and adjusting for meteorological indicators and day-of-the-week effects, in the one-pollutant model, every 10 μg/m3 increase in ozone(O3) was associated with a 2.482% (95% CI 1.044%, 3.919%) change in emergency strokes within lag0. For males, every 10 μg/m3 increase of O3 contributed to a 0.77% percent greater change compared with females. For the group younger than 60 years, we observed a 1.14% increase in risk with every 10 μg/m3 increase in O3. The group with pre-existing hypertension had a 0.26% higher risk than the group with no pre-existing hypertension with every 10 μg/m3 increase in O3. In two-pollutant model, when O3 was combined with a 10 μg/m3 increase of NO2, it increased the most significant risk of emergency stroke by 0.22%. These findings suggest that short-term exposure to O3 within 0 days is associated with emergency outpatient strokes, and younger people (age