Emergency Room Visits Due To Respiratory Illness from Major Hospitals of Chennai: A Preliminary Study

Health status is determined by both host and environmental factors. Among the environmental factors, outdoor air pollution has recently received attention for its public health importance. Increasing urbanization and unprecedented vehicular growth in developing countries such as India exacerbate air quality culminating in polluted environment. There is good evidence that the health of 900 million urban people across the world is deteriorating daily because of high levels of ambient air pollutants and the adverse effects of air pollution are more pronounced in developing countries. Aim of the study was to evaluate the emergency room visits in major government hospitals of Chennai city for a select period and to evaluate the feasibility of using the data on particulate matter levels in examining the association between PM 10 and emergency room visits. Hospital data of emergency room visits (ERV) for the years 2006, 2007 & 2008 due to respiratory illness was collected from the Medical Records Department of two of the three major government hospitals of Chennai and was categorized by gender and age as well as the relevant ICD codes (ICD version 10) for the period January 2006 to December 2008. The incidence of respiratory related health hazards were analyzed accordingly. The number of males reported for emergency room visits was higher than females. The maximum number of visits among the adults was in the age group of 45-65.The PM10 level has shown a 50% increase from 2006 to 2008. The study reveals an alarming increase in ERV due to repiratory causes in the urban population of Chennai which could be due to increased levels of ambient air pollution (PM 10) due to rapid urbanisation. ERV can be used as a health indicator in the ongoing air pollution study and has potential applications in future in assessing the trend of health status in urban population.