scholarly journals Air Quality and Respiratory Health among Adolescents from the United Arab Emirates

2015 ◽  
Vol 2015 ◽  
pp. 1-13 ◽  
Author(s):  
Caroline Barakat-Haddad ◽  
Sheng Zhang ◽  
Ayesha Siddiqua ◽  
Rania Dghaim

Purpose. To examine the role of air quality in relation to chronic bronchitis, emphysema, asthma, wheeze, and dry cough among adolescents from the United Arab Emirates (UAE).Methods. A survey was administered on 6,363 adolescents from 9 UAE regions. Data consists of demographic, socioeconomic, residential, and behavioural variables, such as location of residence, residing near industry/gas stations/dumpsites/construction sites, residing near overhead power line/plants, exposure to tobacco, residential exposure, ethnicity, concern over air pollution, smoking, and purposely smelling gasoline fumes/glue/correctors/car exhaust/burning black ants. Logistic regression modeling was used to determine significant predictors of respiratory health.Results. Asthma prevalence was 12.3%, followed by chronic bronchitis (1.8%) and emphysema (0.5%). Overall 12.2% reported wheeze and 34.8% reported a dry nocturnal cough in the past year. Multivariate analyses suggest that sex is a significant predictor of asthma and dry cough. Exposure to tobacco and arts/crafts/ceramics/stain is significant predictor of respiratory health. Tobacco smoking and purposely smelling gasoline fumes/glue/correctors/car exhaust/burning black ants are significant predictors of wheeze and dry cough.Conclusions. This study suggests that exposure to air quality and behavioral factors such as smoking and purposely smelling gasoline fumes, glue, correctors, car exhaust, or burning black ants are significant predictors of respiratory health among UAE adolescents.

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Aynaz Lotfata ◽  
Alexander Hohl

AbstractBackgroundPeople who live with respiratory diseases like asthma are more likely at risk of serious illness. Spatial analytic techniques allow for discovering areas of concern and finding correlates of asthma prevalence.ObjectiveThere is growing interest in disentangling the impacts of socioeconomic and environmental factors on respiratory health, their spatial correlation, and the demographic profile of people at risk of respiratory diseases. It is important to know how people with asthma are geographically distributed and what social and environmental factors correlate with asthma. Thereby, the purpose of the study is to describe socioeconomic factors associated with asthma prevalence in Cook County, IL and to identify the significant risks and the protective factors to control asthma.Data and MethodsData obtained from CDC 2018 SVI, ACS, the City of Chicago Data Portal, HealthData.gov, and ESRI. In this paper, we illustrate the usefulness of geospatial regression analysis in the analysis and presentation of spatially distributed asthma prevalence among the population with disabilities, minorities with the language barrier, nonwhite population, age 17 and younger, and age 65 and older in the census tracts of Cook County, IL where Chicago Metropolitan Area located. In addition, we map the spatial variation of asthma prevalence with variation in the tree canopy, access to medical centers, air quality, and household quality. Lastly, we used bivariate mapping to illustrate the spatial distributions of residential land use and tree covers.ResultsOur findings show a good correlation between asthma and socioeconomic and physical factors including age 17 and younger, age 65 and older, population with disabilities, a minority with the language barrier, tree canopy, access to medical centers, air quality, and household quality. The aged 65 and older, 17 and younger, and people with disabilities are found to have a higher asthma prevalence in areas around the industrial corridors in southeast and west sides of Cook County, IL. Results may guide further decisions in planning for asthma research and intervention, especially for identifying vulnerable areas and people.


2007 ◽  
Vol 85 (1) ◽  
pp. 149-154 ◽  
Author(s):  
M. Diane Lougheed

Asthma remains a global respiratory health concern. Substantial variations in asthma outcomes persist in Canada despite the dissemination of national management guidelines. Many factors and their interactions presumably contribute to variations in outcomes, including asthma prevalence, severity, symptom recognition, self-management behaviour, access to care, and management. This article reviews the physiology of symptom perception in asthma, specifically the role of dynamic lung hyperinflation (DH) on the perception of the intensity and quality of dyspnea in asthma, and the link between blunted perception and life-threatening asthma. Additionally, the magnitude and correlates of regional variation in emergency department visit rates and hospitalizations for asthma in Ontario are reviewed.


2018 ◽  
Vol 7 (3.5) ◽  
pp. 65
Author(s):  
Krovopuskov P ◽  
Kantaryuk E ◽  
Chernyshova M

The paper deals with the coastal tourism in Iran and the United Arab Emirates by identifying the impact of tourist attractions on the development of coastal tourism in both countries, and the role of coastal tourism (beach, landscape, etc.) in attracting tourists in the two countries. In the present study, we investigated the environmental-ecological, socio-cultural, historical-political, economic, institutional-managerial and physical-spatial dimensions of the study area. The topicality of this work is the industrial tourism development. It will allow to enhance the economic potential of the regions, increase the flow of "domestic tourists» and improve the competitiveness of enterprises in the Region. It has been studied the prospects of industrial tourism development for students of universities in Russia and directly in the Lipetsk region at the present stage of development of the machine- and lathe-building industry.  


Author(s):  
Karuna M. Das ◽  
Jamal Aldeen Alkoteesh ◽  
Mohamud Sheek-Hussein ◽  
Samira Ali Alzadjali ◽  
Mariam Tareq Alafeefi ◽  
...  

Abstract Background The Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus (MERS-Cov) continues to be a source of concern due to intermittent outbreaks. Serial chest radiographic changes in MERS-Cov patients were analyzed for various variables that could be compared to the patients’ final outcomes in a cluster of MERS-Cov patients and to identify a predictor of mortality in the United Arab Emirates. Results A total of 44 MERS-Cov cases were reviewed. The mean age of the patients was 43.7 ± 14.7 years. The chest radiograph was abnormal in 14/44 (31.8%). The commonest radiology features include ground-glass opacities (seven of 14, 50%), ground-glass and consolidation (seven of 14, 50%), pleural effusion (eight of 14, 57.1%), and air bronchogram (three of 14, 21.4%). The mortality rate was 13.6% (six of 44); the deceased group (6 of 44, 13.6%) was associated with significantly higher incidence of mechanical ventilation (p < 0.001), pleural effusion (p < 0.001), chest radiographic score (8.90 ± 6.31, p < 0.001), and type 4 radiographic progression of disease (p < 0.001). A chest radiographic score at presentation was seen to be an independent and strong predictor of mortality (OR [95% confidence interval] 3.20 [1.35, 7.61]). The Cohen κ coefficient for the interobserver agreement was k = 0.89 (p = 0.001). Conclusion The chest radiographic score, associated with a higher degree of disease progression (type 4), particularly in patients with old age or with comorbidity, may indicate a poorer prognosis in MERS-Cov infection, necessitating intensive care unit management or predicting impending death.


2021 ◽  
pp. 1-22
Author(s):  
Amanda K. Winter ◽  
Huong Le ◽  
Simon Roberts

Abstract This paper explores the perception and politics of air pollution in Shanghai. We present a qualitative case study based on a literature review of relevant policies and research on civil society and air pollution, in dialogue with air quality indexes and field research data. We engage with the concept of China's authoritarian environmentalism and the political context of ecological civilization. We find that discussions about air pollution are often placed in a frame that is both locally temporal (environment) and internationally developmentalist (economy). We raise questions from an example of three applications with different presentations of air quality index measures for the same time and place. This example and frame highlight the central role and connection between technology, data and evidence, and pollution visibility in the case of the perception of air pollution. Our findings then point to two gaps in authoritarian environmentalism research, revealing a need to better understand (1) the role of technology within this governance context, and (2) the tensions created from this non-participatory approach with ecological civilization, which calls for civil society participation.


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