title: The relationship between Asian dust events and out-of-hospital cardiac arrests in Japan.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Asian dust events are caused by dust storms that originate in the deserts of China and Mongolia and drift across East Asia. We hypothesized that the dust events would increase incidence of out-of-hospital cardiac arrests by triggering acute events or exacerbating chronic diseases.
  
  
  METHODS
  We analyzed the Utstein-Style data collected in 2005 to 2008 from seven prefectures covering almost the entire length of Japan to investigate the effect of Asian dust events on out-of-hospital cardiac arrests. Asian dust events were defined by the measurement of light detection and ranging. A time-stratified case-crossover analysis was performed. The strength of the association between Asian dust events and out-of-hospital cardiac arrests was shown by odds ratios and 95% confidence intervals in two conditional logistic models. A pooled estimate was obtained from area-specific results by random-effect meta-analysis.
  
  
  RESULTS
  The total number of cases of out-of-hospital cardiac arrest was 59 273, of which 35 460 were in men and 23 813 were in women. The total number of event days during the study period was smallest in Miyagi and Niigata and largest in Shimane and Nagasaki. There was no significant relationship between Asian dust events and out-of-hospital cardiac arrests by area in either of the models. In the pooled analysis, the highest odds ratios were observed at lag day 1 in both model 1 (OR 1.07; 95% CI, 0.97-1.19) and model 2 (OR 1.08; 95% CI, 0.97-1.20). However, these results were not statistically significant.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  We found no evidence of an association between Asian dust events and out-of-hospital cardiac arrests.
authors: Department of Environmental and Occupational Health, School of Medicine, Toho University.
authors: Takahiro
authors: T
authors: Nakamura
authors: Masahiro
authors: M
authors: Hashizume
authors: Kayo
authors: K
authors: Ueda
authors: Tatsuhiko
authors: T
authors: Kubo
authors: Atsushi
authors: A
authors: Shimizu
authors: Tomonori
authors: T
authors: Okamura
authors: Yuji
authors: Y
authors: Nishiwaki
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D000397:Air Pollution / Q000009:adverse effects* / Q000032:analysis; D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D018592:Cross-Over Studies; D004391:Dust / Q000032:analysis*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007223:Infant; D007231:Infant, Newborn; D007564:Japan / Q000453:epidemiology; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D058687:Out-of-Hospital Cardiac Arrest / Q000453:epidemiology*; D013997:Time Factors; D055815:Young Adult
chemical_list: D004391:Dust