Increases in levels of particulate matter in the air, even within World Health Organization guidelines, correspond with an increase in the number of patients going to the hospital emergency department, according to research presented at the European Emergency Medicine Congress today (Wednesday). The study found links particularly between air pollution and cases of trauma, breathing difficulties and skin conditions. The research was presented by Dr.
Andrea Rossetto an emergency medicine resident at University of Florence and Careggi University Hospital, Florence, Italy, and a PhD Student at Queen Mary University of London, UK. We know that air pollution is damaging for health, especially in terms of breathing and lung diseases, and this is likely to have an impact on our health services. However, there is limited evidence on the impact of fluctuations in air pollution on the overall workload in the emergency department.
" Dr. Andrea Rossetto, emergency medicine resident at University of Florence Working with Dr Alessio Gnerucci from the Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Florence, Italy, Dr Rossetto gathered data on patients admitted to the emergency department at Careggi University Hospital in Florence between 2019 and 2022. This included a total of 307,279 patient visits to the emergency department.
They compared this with data on the daily levels of particulate matter of less than 2.5 micrometres in size (PM2.5) and particulate matter of less than 10 micromet.