Relationship between industrial pollutant emissions and inpatient utilization among respiratory disease patients in China

Objective To explore the association between emission amount of industrial pollutants and the extent of inpatient utilization among patients with respiratory diseases in China.Methods Relevant data were extracted from Statistical Yearbook of China;bivariate correlation and regression model were adopted to analyze the correlation between cumulative industrial pollutant emission per capita (Xi) and hospitalization rate (Y_i) of patients with 13 kinds of respiratory diseases in the public general hospitals from 2004 through 2012.Results Both industrial pollutant emission per capita and the hospitalization rates of patients with 13 kinds of respiratory diseases in the public general hospitals showed a rising trend year by year.The average annual growth rate of inpatient utilization for patients with influenza in these hospitals was 36.73%,followed by 31.95% for patients with lung disease induced by external substances and 30.75% for patients with pneumonia;the lowest growth rate was 2.74% for inpatient utilization among patients with whooping.The industrial pollutant emission with fastest increase was cumulative industrial waste gas per capita (41.12%) and that with the lowest was industrial solid waste per capita (14.49%).There were strong correlations between per capita cumulative emissions of industrial smoke,dust,and solid waste and the hospitalization rate of patients with chronic tonsil adenoid disease (r=0.877,0.867,0.839),between per capita cumulative emissions of sulfur dioxide and wastewater and external substance induced lung diseases (r=0.920,0.875),and between industrial exhaust and chronic pulmonary heart disease (r=0.911).In addition,based on the analyses of regression model,all the diseases showed a linear correlation with industrial exhaust,except for pertussis,influenza,and nasopharyngeal cancer (all P<0.05).Conclusion There is a strong correlation between the emissions of industrial waste gas,sulfur dioxide and dust and the inpatient utilization among patients with respiratory diseases.