Air Pollution and Hypertension Hospitalizations

The air pollutant concentration data of Ganzhou City from January 1, 2015 to December 31, 2020 were obtained on the China Urban Air Quality Real-time Release Platform. Calculate and sort out the 24-h average concentrations of five air pollutants such as PM_2.5, PM₁₀, carbon monoxide (CO), Nitrogen dioxide (NO₂), and sulfur dioxide (SO₂) and the daily maximum 8-h average ozone (O₃) concentration. Air pollution exposure concentrations were matched according to the patients' hospitalization dates to generate a total of 15 air pollution concentration data series including L0, L0-6, L0-13, L0-29, L0-59, L0-89, L0-119, L0-149, L0-179, L0-209, L0-239, L0-269, L0-299, L0-329, and L0-359. Where L0 is equivalent to the same day exposure concentration of the respective air pollutant and L0-6 are equivalent to the moving average exposure concentrations at a lag of 6 days between hospital admissions for patients with hypertension. Meteorological data comes from the National Climate Data Center, which collects indicators such as the daily average temperature (°C) and relative humidity (%) in Ganzhou from January 1, 2016 to December 31, 2020. The locations of air pollutant data monitoring sites and hospital admissions (two campuses) are shown in Figure 1.