To what extent is air pollution associated with cardiorespiratory hospitalisations across Australia? A whole-of-population ecological study

Abstract

Objectives and importance of study: This study aimed to examine the extent to which residential ambient air pollution across Australia, globally a relatively low-pollution setting, is associated with cardiovascular and respiratory hospitalisations. Study type: A national, cross-sectional, ecological study. Methods: This whole-of-population study used national air pollution estimates from 2016 and administrative hospitalisation data aggregated across 1155 public health areas from 2016 to 2017, representing 23,236,046 of the Australian population. Population-weighted median concentrations from 2016 of particulate matter ≤2.5 µm (PM2.5; 6.4 µg/m3) and nitrogen dioxide (NO2; 4.4 ppb) were estima..