Air Pollution and Hospital Admission for Epilepsy in Kerman, Iran

Abstract

Background: There is little information about air pollution and epilepsy attacks. The aim of this study was to investigate the relation between air pollution and epilepsy admission in Kerman, Iran.Methods: This was an ecological study, in which the concentrations of ambient air pollutants and meteorological data were inquired from the Kerman Environmental Protection Agency and the Kerman Meteorology Organization respectively, and epilepsy admission data were obtained from Kerman’s Shafa hospital Epilepsy Registry. Generalized Additive Models (GAM) with lags up to 7 days were used for estimating the Relative Risks (RR).Results: During 2008 until 2020, 894 epilepsy admission occurred in Kerman which 498 (55.7%) were male. The strongest relation between epilepsy admission was seen in the over 59 years group for CO in lag 0 (RR = 2.1455, 95% CI: 1.5823–2.9091), for NO2 in lag 0 (RR =1.0409, 95% CI: 1.0282–1.0537), and for PM2.5 in lag 5 (RR =1.0157, 95% CI: 1.0062–1.0252). Also for PM10 in the under 18 year's group in lag 2 (RR =1.0064, 95% CI: 1.0029–1.0098), for O3 in lag 0 (RR =0.9671, 95% CI: 0.9581–0.9761) and for SO2 in lag 5 (RR = 0.9937, 95% CI: 0.9891–0.9983).Conclusion: The findings of this study showed that CO, NO2, PM2.5, and PM10 air pollutants might be risk factors for epilepsy admission in Kerman.