Abstract
To investigate the influence and lag effect of atmospheric pollen concentration on daily visits of patients with allergic rhinitis (AR), we collected the AR data during the pollen seasons from 2018 to 2019 from the outpatient and emergency department of Beijing Shijitan Hospital. The distributed lag non-linear model (DLNM) was used to analyze the correlation and the lag effect between pollen concentration and the incidence of AR. R4.1.2 was used to generate the Spearman correlation coefficients and plot the lag response curves of relative risk specific and incremental cumulative effects. In 2018 and 2019, the number of AR visits was moderately positively correlated with pollen concentration. The peak value of the overall specific cumulative effect for every 10 grains/1000 mm2 increase in atmospheric pollen concentration occurred on day 0 (2018, 2019), and the lag disappearance time was day 6 (2018) and day 7 (2019), and the specific cumulative effect duration was respectively 6 days (2018) and 7 days (2019), with the curve showing a downward trend with time increase. In 2018, the peak value of the overall incremental cumulative effect was on day 7, the lag disappearance time was day 13, and the duration of the incremental cumulative effect was 13 days, forming a curve pattern of rising first and then falling. In 2019, the peak value time of the overall incremental cumulative effect was on day 8, and the curve went down afterwards until it showed the trend of ascending again after day26.
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The datasets used or analyzed during this study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.
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Acknowledgements
We are very grateful for the help of the Information Center of Beijing Shijitan Hospital. I would like to thank professor Yin Jinshu for her guidance in the writing of this paper and every author’s contribution.
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All authors contributed to the study conception and design. Yin Jinshu proposed the research idea, and Tang Xianshi further refined the scientific methodology and participated in the English writing and proofreading of the manuscript. Material preparation, data collection, and analysis were performed by Liu Aizhu, and the R code part was written by Sheng Weixuan. The first draft of the manuscript was written by Liu Aizhu, and all authors commented on previous versions of the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.
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This retrospective clinical study involved a total of 31,623 cases including 17,203 female (54.4%) and 14,420 male patients (35.6%), with 6982 patients (female 3695, male 3287) reported in 2018 and the rest 24,641 patients (female 13,508, male 11,133) in 2019. Clinical data of patients were collected without intervention in their treatment plans, and therefore posing no risks to the patients’ physical conditions. And the information provided by patients as personal privacy would be well protected from being leaked without informed consent.
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In this retrospective study, only the number of patients was collected, no personal privacy was involved, and no informed consent was obtained.
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Liu, A., Sheng, W., Tang, X. et al. Effect of atmospheric pollen concentration on daily visits of allergic rhinitis in Beijing: a distributed lag nonlinear model analysis. Int J Biometeorol 67, 1723–1732 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00484-023-02533-0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00484-023-02533-0