Association Between Air Pollutants and Infectious Epiglottitis Incidence: A Observational Study

Infectious epiglottitis is inflammation of epiglottis and surrounding structures and may be life-threatening without treatment. Air pollution is a critical risk factor for human health. This study aims to explore the correlation between infectious epiglottitis and air pollutants.

We collected the daily infectious epiglottitis cases in our hospital and the daily meteorological data, including average temperature, relative humidity, and the daily concentrations of air pollutants of Shanghai, China, from January, 2015 to December, 2019. Air pollutants include particulate matter (PM_2.5 and PM₁₀), sulfur dioxide (SO₂) and nitrogen dioxide (NO₂). Generalized additive Poisson regression models were applied to assess the association between the corresponding pollutants and hospital visits for infectious epiglottitis.

A total of 3280 infectious epiglottitis cases were identified with 1.80 hospital visits per day for all subjects. The mean daily concentrations of PM_2.5, PM₁₀, SO₂, and NO₂ were 39.7 μg/m³, 53.9 μg/m³,11.0 μg/m³, and 40.5 μg/m³, respectively. Spearman correlation analyses indicated a moderate to strong and positive correlation among air pollutants. There was a linear and increasing association between the daily concentration of PM_2.5 and hospital visits (p < 0.01). The significant estimate was found in PM_2.5 for 1-day lag (RR = 1.041, 95% CI 1.003, 1.079). No significant association was observed among all lag days for other pollutants.

Particulate matter 2.5, SO₂, and NO₂ were significantly associated with infectious epiglottitis incidence in Shanghai. The estimated hospital visits were increased by 4.1% for a 10-μg/m³ increase in PM_2.5 for 1-day lag.