O impacto da poluição do ar na mortalidade por doença pulmonar obstrutiva crônica e câncer pulmonar

Abstract

The air pollution impacts have been evidenced over the years in years from anywhere on the entire planet, either by catastrophic events or simply by their presence in the atmosphere. Exposure due to the amount of pollutants that exist in the atmosphere puts people's health at risk and causes the aggravation of numerous diseases. The places that present this scenario most clearly are those recognized as urban centers. Therefore, this study aimed to determine the impacts of air pollutants on mortality rates from chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and lung cancer (LC) using vector autoregressive modeling (VAR), in the state of São Paulo, which has the largest urban center in the country, to identify how the variables atmospheric conditions are interrelated with these diseases. The data on the air pollutants used were collected at the Environmental Company of the State of São Paulo (CETESB) because they have a robust monitoring, control and inspection system, which has free access through the site and covers the entire state. Information on mortality from chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and lung cancer were collected at the Department of Informatics of the Brazilian Unified Health System (DATASUS). Therefore, this study aimed to determine the impacts of air pollutants on mortality rates from chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and lung cancer (LC) using vector autoregressive modeling (VAR). The adjusted model was a VAR(1) and, according to the Granger causality test, the air pollutants selected were PM10, O3, CO, NO2, and SO2. The shocks applied to the variables O3, using the impulse response function, negatively impacted COPD; in the eighth period, which is stabilized. The LC variable suffered more significant variations from O3 and after a shock in this variable, an initially negative response in LC occurred and the series stabilized in period nine. After one year, 20.19 % of COPD variance was explained by O3. After twelve months, the atmospheric pollutant O3 represented 5.00% and NO2 represented 4.02% of LC variance. Moreover, the variables that caused the highest impact on COPD and LC mortality rates were O3 and NO2, indicating that air pollution influences the clinical state of people who have these diseases and even contributes to their development. The VAR model was able to identify the air pollutants that have the most significant impact on the diseases analyzed and explained the interrelationship between them.