Accepted for/Published in: JMIR Public Health and Surveillance
Date Submitted: Dec 18, 2020
Date Accepted: Apr 15, 2021
The association between short-term exposure to ambient air pollution and patient-level home blood pressure in patients with chronic cardiovascular diseases from a web-based synchronous telehealth care program: A retrospective study
ABSTRACT
Background:
The association between short-term exposure to ambient air pollution and blood pressure was inconsistent.
Objective:
We aimed to investigate the relationship between short-term ambient air pollution exposure and patient-level home blood pressure (HBP).
Methods:
Patients with chronic cardiovascular diseases from a telehealth care program at a university-affiliated hospital were enrolled as the study population. Home blood pressure was measured by patients or their caregivers. Hourly meteorological data (including temperature, relative humidity, wind speed and rainfall) and ambient air pollution monitoring data (including CO, NO2, PM10, PM2.5, and SO2) during the same time period were obtained from the Central Weather Bureau and Environmental Protection Administration (EPA), Taiwan, respectively. Stepwise multivariate repeated generalized estimating equation (GEE) model was used to assess the significant factors for predicting systolic and diastolic blood pressure (SBP and DBP).
Results:
There were a total of 253 patients and 110,715 HBP measurements. In multivariate analysis, demographical, clinical, meteorological factors and air pollutants all significantly affected HBP (both SBP and DBP). All of the 5 air pollutants evaluated in this study showed significant association with both home SBP and DBP, and the relationship was non-linear. Compared with demographical and clinical factors, environmental factors (meteorological factors and air pollutants) played a minor yet significant role in regulation of HBP.
Conclusions:
Short-term exposure to ambient air pollution significantly affected HBP in patients with chronic cardiovascular diseases. Clinical Trial: N/A
Citation
Per the author's request the PDF is not available.
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