Study of Inter-Relationship between Urban Air Pollution in terms of AQI and Blood Pressure

摘要

Urban air pollution is proving to be a great health hazard for the residents of the cities. It is one of the main causes of respiratory infections and selected cardiovascular diseases. Air pollution exposure results in significant changes in many cardiovascular indexes like- heart rate & blood pressure etc. As Jodhpur is declared Rajasthan's most polluted city by W.H.O, we took a study to evaluate association and develop a relationship between air pollution in terms of Indian AQI as per CPCB and Blood pressure. Further Blood pressure is also a risk factor for future cardiovascular problems. Five locations at Jodhpur were selected for measurement of air pollutants like PM_(10), SO_2, NO and CO. Also study was undertaken on persons with exposure to air pollution for 1-5 years.~9 Similarly persons with the same socio-economic background but not exposed to air pollution were selected for comparative observations. Systolic and diastolic blood pressure was measured with the subject seated and percentage increase in systolic blood pressure (ISBP) and percentage increase in diastolic blood pressure (IDBP) was calculated. Linear regression analysis with the help of SPSS was done. It is clear from the observation and analysis that increase in exposure duration and AQI is responsible for increase in SBP/DBP. It is clear from the statistical analysis that two independent variables Exposure duration and AQI jointly account for the variation in ISBP up to 84.9% and remaining 15.1% is due to other reasons. It also indicated that these two independent variables jointly account for the variation in IDBP up to 85.9% and remaining 14.1% variation is due to other reasons. Further by , multiple regression analysis estimated equations for showing relationship of ISBP/IDBP with AQI and exposure duration were developed.