Association of ambient air pollution with hospital admissions for major osteoarthritis diseases: A national case-crossover study in China

This is the authors' abstract. We don't add key points for this paper.

OBJECTIVES: To investigate the acute effects of short-term exposure to ambient air pollution on the risk of hospital admissions for osteoarthritis (OA) and its major subtypes. METHODS: Hospital admission data on OA and its major subtypes were sourced from two major urban medical insurance systems in China, covering the period from 2013 to 2017. A two-stage, time-stratified case-crossover design was used to investigate the acute effects of short-term exposure to ambient air pollutants on hospital admissions for OA across 278 Chinese cities with available hospital admission data over 50 cases. The conditional logistic regression model was utilized to assess city-specific associations, which were subsequently pooled by employing a random-effects model. RESULTS: . CONCLUSIONS: Short-term exposure to ambient air pollution is significantly associated with an increased risk and burden of OA admissions.