title: Asian dust storm events are associated with an acute increase in pneumonia hospitalization.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  This study aims to examine the association of Asian dust storm (ADS) events with the daily number of pneumonia admissions using 10-year population-based data in the Taipei metropolitan region.
  
  
  METHODS
  We identified 1,933,247 admissions with a principal discharge diagnosis of pneumonia between 2000 and 2009. The auto-regressive integrated moving average (ARIMA) method was used to examine the associations between ADS episodes and the logarithm of the daily number of pneumonia hospitalizations.
  
  
  RESULTS
  There was a significant difference in the mean number of daily pneumonia admissions between ADS event days, post-ADS event days, and non-ADS event days (P < .001); the mean number of daily admissions for ADS event days, post-ADS event days, and non-ADS event days were 292.5, 305.7, and 279.0, respectively. After adjusting for the time-trend effect, ambient temperature, and SO(2), CO, and O(3), the ARIMA showed that compared with non-ADS event days, ADS event days and post-ADS event days 1 through 4 had a significantly higher mean number of pneumonia admissions for the total group.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Our results suggest that ADS event days and post-ADS days 1 through 4 had significantly higher mean numbers of pneumonia admissions than non-ADS days.
authors.affiliation: Taipei Medical University Hospital, Department of Internal Medicine, Section of Infectious Diseases, Taipei, Taiwan.
authors.forename: Jiunn-Horng
authors.initials: JH
authors.lastname: Kang
authors.forename: Joseph J
authors.initials: JJ
authors.lastname: Keller
authors.forename: Chin-Shyan
authors.initials: CS
authors.lastname: Chen
authors.forename: Herng-Ching
authors.initials: HC
authors.lastname: Lin
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D000393:Air Pollutants / Q000009:adverse effects / Q000032:analysis*; D000397:Air Pollution / Q000009:adverse effects / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D044466:Asian People; D002648:Child; D004391:Dust / Q000032:analysis*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D011014:Pneumonia / Q000453:epidemiology*; D013624:Taiwan / Q000453:epidemiology; D055815:Young Adult
chemical_list: D000393:Air Pollutants; D004391:Dust