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. 2019 Mar 20;16(6):1014.
doi: 10.3390/ijerph16061014.

Study of the Effects of Air Pollutants on Human Health Based on Baidu Indices of Disease Symptoms and Air Quality Monitoring Data in Beijing, China

Shaobo Zhong  1 , Zhichen Yu  2 , Wei Zhu  3
Affiliations

Study of the Effects of Air Pollutants on Human Health Based on Baidu Indices of Disease Symptoms and Air Quality Monitoring Data in Beijing, China

Shaobo Zhong et al. Int J Environ Res Public Health. .

Abstract

There is an increasing body of evidence showing the impact of air pollutants on human health such as on the respiratory, and cardio- and cerebrovascular systems. In China, as people begin to pay more attention to air quality, recent research focused on the quantitative assessment of the effects of air pollutants on human health. To assess the health effects of air pollutants and to construct an indicator placing emphasis on health impact, a generalized additive model was selected to assess the health burden caused by air pollution. We obtained Baidu indices (an evaluation indicator launched by Baidu Corporation to reflect the search popularity of keywords from its search engine) to assess daily query frequencies of 25 keywords considered associated with air pollution-related diseases. Moreover, we also calculated the daily concentrations of major air pollutants (including PM10, PM2.5, SO₂, O₃, NO₂, and CO) and the daily air quality index (AQI) values, and three meteorological factors: daily mean wind level, daily mean air temperature, and daily mean relative humidity. These data cover the area of Beijing from 1 March 2015 to 30 April 2017. Through the analysis, we produced the relative risks (RRs) of the six main air pollutants for respiratory, and cardio- and cerebrovascular diseases. The results showed that O₃ and NO₂ have the highest health impact, followed by PM10 and PM2.5. The effects of any pollutant on cardiovascular diseases was consistently higher than on respiratory diseases. Furthermore, we evaluated the currently used AQI in China and proposed an RR-based index (health AQI, HAQI) that is intended for better indicating the effects of air pollutants on respiratory, and cardio- and cerebrovascular diseases than AQI. A higher Pearson correlation coefficient between HAQI and RRTotal than that between AQI and RRTotal endorsed our efforts.

Keywords: Baidu index; air pollution; air quality index; cardio- and cerebrovascular disease; generalized additive model; respiratory disease.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflicts of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Locations of the study areas within China and the air quality monitoring stations.
Figure 2
Figure 2
The number of daily observations during the study period.
Figure 3
Figure 3
The time series of daily meteorological factors (mean temperature, mean relative humidity, and mean wind level), pollutant concentrations, and the Ministry of Environmental Protection (MEP) air quality index (AQI).
Figure 4
Figure 4
The time series of daily respiratory total index (RTI) and cardio- and cerebrovascular total index (CTI).
Figure 5
Figure 5
(a) AQI and six major air pollutants, where CO is shown on the right side of the vertical axis; (b) meteorological factors, where wind level is shown on the right side of the vertical axis; (c) respiratory-related Baidu indices; and (d) cardio- and cerebrovascular-related Baidu indices.
Figure 6
Figure 6
Coplot showing the relationship between the variables air quality index (AQI) and RTI conditioned on meteorological factors (humidity, temperature, and wind level): (a) the relationship between RTI and AQI conditioned on humidity; (b) the relationship between RTI and AQI conditioned on temperature; and (c) the relationship between RTI and AQI conditioned on wind speed.
Figure 7
Figure 7
Curves of AQI, HAQI, and relative risk (RRTotal) according to their daily data during the study period.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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