ASSOCIATIONS BETWEEN HEALTH AND AIR-POLLUTION IN TIME-SERIES ANALYSES

The objective of this study was to determine the contribution of cycli c geophysical and sociocultural factors and of meterological and pollu tant variations to explained variance in asthma admissions. A Poisson regression-type quasi-fourier generalized linear model was built. We c onstructed an extended family of models to study the contribution of e ach variable. Daily observations of children's admissions for asthma w ere conducted during 2 y in hospitals in Melbourne, Australia. Polluta nt data (i.e., fine particles, sulfur dioxide, nitrogen dioxide, and o zone) and meterological data (i.e., maximum and minimum temperatures, mean humidity, and mean barometric pressure) were collected. The resul t of the final model accounted for 57% of the variance in admissions. The contribution of pollution, with all periodic patterns estimated by Poisson ANOVA, was 14%, even though no pollutant alone made a signifi cant contribution to explained variance. Autocorrelation analysis of r esiduals showed that the model accounted reasonably well for autocorre lation effects.