title: Asian dust storm events are associated with an acute increase in stroke hospitalisation.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  Asian dust storms (ADS) are long-ranged meteorological phenomena, which are suggested to be associated with several health problems. This study aimed to investigate the risk of stroke hospitalisation following ADS events by conducting a population-based study.
  
  
  METHODS
  The authors identified 810 947 hospitalisations with an admission diagnosis of stroke during the time period between 2000 and 2009 in Taiwan. The ARIMA method (Auto-Regressive Integrated Moving Average) was used to examine the associations between ADS episodes and the daily number of stroke hospitalisations.
  
  
  RESULTS
  There were 46 separate ADS episodes which resulted in a total of 135 ADS days between 2000 and 2009. The Kruskal-Wallis test revealed that there was a significant difference in the mean number of daily stroke admissions among ADS days (239.6), post-ADS days (249.2) and non-ADS days (219.7) (p<0.001). After adjusting for the time-trend effect, ambient temperature, season, SO(2) and CO, the authors found post-ADS days 1 and 2 to have a significantly higher number of stroke admission than non-ADS days. Post-ADS days 1 and 2 had significantly higher numbers of ischaemic but not haemorrhagic stroke admissions.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The authors conclude that ADS events are associated with an acute increase in stroke admission rates.
authors: Department of Physica lMedicine and Rehabilitation, Taipei Medical University Hospital, Taipei, Taiwan.
authors: Jiunn-Horng
authors: JH
authors: Kang
authors: Tsai-Ching
authors: TC
authors: Liu
authors: Joseph
authors: J
authors: Keller
authors: Herng-Ching
authors: HC
authors: Lin
mesh_terms: D000393:Air Pollutants / Q000009:adverse effects / Q000032:analysis*; D000397:Air Pollution / Q000009:adverse effects / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D004391:Dust / Q000032:analysis*; D004784:Environmental Monitoring; D005260:Female; D006760:Hospitalization / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D011159:Population Surveillance; D012621:Seasons; D020521:Stroke / Q000453:epidemiology*; D013624:Taiwan / Q000453:epidemiology; D014919:Wind
chemical_list: D000393:Air Pollutants; D004391:Dust