Home Environmental Intervention to Reduce Exposure Level to PM2.5 for Children with Asthma using Clustered data of ESCORT Child Asthma Panel Study, South Korea

摘要

BACKGROUND: Children with asthma in inner-city communities may be particularly vulnerable to adverse effects of indoor air quality because they spend most of their time in indoor, yet little is known about the effect of environmental interventions in the Korean home setting. OBJECTIVE: We piloted the feasibility and effectiveness of a home-based air cleaner intervention to reduce particulate matter < 2.5 pm (PM2.5) in homes of children with asthma. METHODS: In this pilot randomized controlled trial, with a case-crossover design, we assessed the effect of air cleaners on indoor PM2.5 concentrations at 30 homes (15 control, 15 intervention) in the metropolitan city of Incheon, South Korea. We obtained 867 episodes from children with asthma (15 control, 15 intervention) aged 7 to 12 years. Daily home air pollutant measurements and peak expiratory flow rate were completed over 6 weeks (3 weeks before and another 3 weeks twice after randomization). Indoor air quality were compared between control and interferon group and using mixed models the association of fluctuations of daily indoor air quality and PEFR. RESULTS: Indoor PM2.5 concentration levels (median (Q1～Q3) for overall intervening period was 8.8(3.2～12.8) ug/m3 for intervention group and 15.8(8.5～20.5) for case group. Unit increase in concentration of PM2.5 significantly reduced the PEFR by 0.8 l/min (95% confidence interval [CI]: 0.1-1.5) after adjusting for indoor C02, temperature, relative humidity, sex, age and body mass index (BMI). In this study, we found that fluctuation of indoor PM2.5 were also associated with PEFR and a home-based air cleaner intervention was effective to reduce indoor PM2.5 levels.