Study of the effects of air pollution in both neonatal mortality and late fetal losses in the city of São Paulo, Brazil

Abstract

Several studies have suggested that infants and elderly are more susceptible to the effects of air pollution. Few studies have focused the acute effects of air pollution on fetuses and newborn babies. Using time series analisys techniques, the present study investigates the association between air pollution exposure and neonatal mortality and late fetal losses, in the year of 1998, in the city of Sao Paulo, Brazil. Poisson regression was applied and it was found an association between late fetal losses and leveis of 03 and N02. It was estimated an excess of 3,5% and 4% on mortality. Astatistic association was found between levels of 03, PM10, S02 and N02 and an increase of 10% in neonatal mortality. This results show the side effects of air pollution in health, and how fetuses and newborn babies are affected with this
environmental problem.