Association Between PM_2.5 and Daily Hospital Admissions for Heart Failure: A Time-Series Analysis in Beijing

There is little evidence that acute exposure to fine particulate matter (PM_2.5) impacts the rate of hospitalization for congestive heart failure (CHF) in developing countries. The primary purpose of the present retrospective study was to evaluate the short-term association between ambient PM_2.5 and hospitalization for CHF in Beijing, China. A total of 15,256 hospital admissions for CHF from January 2010 to June 2012 were identified from Beijing Medical Claim Data for Employees and a time-series design with generalized additive Poisson model was used to assess the obtained data. We found a clear significant exposure response association between PM_2.5 and the number of hospitalizations for CHF. Increasing PM_2.5 daily concentrations by 10 μg/m³ caused a 0.35% (95% CI, 0.06⁻0.64%) increase in the number of CHF admissions on the same day. We also found that female and older patients were more susceptible to PM_2.5. These associations remained significant in sensitivity analyses involving changing the degrees of freedom of calendar time, temperature, and relative humidity. PM_2.5 was associated with significantly increased risk of hospitalization for CHF in this citywide study. These findings may contribute to the limited scientific evidence about the acute impacts of PM_2.5 on CHF in China.