Environmental conditions and childhood asthma in Lisbon. An exploratory analysis for autumn thunderstorm
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.18055/Finis6467Abstract
Asthma attacks triggered by thunderstorms have been described inseveralcountries. The rises in pollen concentrations, attributed to atmospheric electricaldischarges, were considered the leading cause of these outbreaks. The presence of variouspollutants as well as certain weather conditions may contribute synergistically to theonsetof exacerbations in patients with a previous diagnosis of asthma. This study aims toinvestigate whether atmospheric electrical discharges exert any influence on the numberof emergency admissions due to childhood asthma, in autumn, in Lisbon. The investigationwill examine whether there are isolated or combined effects of meteorological variables,pollutantand pollen concentrations that favour an increase in the number of exacerbationsof asthma symptoms. For this purpose we compared the number of asthmaadmissions in periodswith and without thunderstorms in a Lisbon paediatric emergencyservice. Increasingpollen concentrations attributed to thunderstorms reported in the literaturewere not found in Lisbon in the days analysed. There was also an absence of relationshipbetween admissions for asthma and air pollution. Associations between hospitalisationsdue to asthmacrisis and atmospheric variables were documented. In Lisbon, no influence of atmosphericelectrical discharges in the variation of the number of emergencyadmissions due to childhood asthma was verified in the studied period (autumn).On the contrary, it was verified that a decrease in minimum temperature positively reinforcesthese admissions.Downloads
Downloads
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
-
Authors are responsible for the opinions expressed in the texts submitted to Finisterra.
-
Authors retain copyright and grant the journal right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgement of the work's authorship and initial publication in this journal.
-
Authors must commit to complying with the “Guidelines for article submission”, on the RCAAP platform.
-
Whenever a text may require amendments based on suggestions made by the Scientific Reviewers and/or the Executive Committee, authors must agree to accept these suggestions and implement the requested changes. If authors disagree with any of the amendments suggested, they will need to provide justifications for each individual case.
-
Reproduction of materials liable to copyright laws has been granted permission in advance.
-
Texts are original, unpublished and have not been submitted to other journals.
License URL CC Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives (BY-NC-ND)