A STUDY OF SHORT-TERM EFFECTS OF AMBIENT AIR POLLUTION ON PUBLIC HEALTH
2.0 SCOPE AND OBJECTIVES
(i)
To acquire data on daily hospital admissions for respiratory and cardiovascular diseases in major hospitals of the Hospital Authority in Hong Kong and air quality and meteorological data, provided by the Environmental Protection Department (EPD) from 1994 to mid-1996;
(ii)
To correlate hospital admissions and mortalities due to respiratory and cardiovascular diseases in these hospitals from 1994 to 1995 with daily air pollutant concentrations, adjusting for meteorological factors, seasonal patterns and time trends;
(iii)
To develop an appropriate statistical model which characterizes significant associations between air quality and hospital admission parameters;
(iv)
Based on (iii) above, make recommendations on the use of a "Acute Health Effects Index" (AHEI) to quantify the effect of ambient air quality parameters on hospital admissions for respiratory and cardiovascular diseases;
(v)
To validate the statistical model developed in (iii) and the AHEI against available hospital admission and air pollution data for the first half-year of 1996.
(vi)
To interpret the findings in the light of similar studies conducted overseas.
