Philippine E-Journals

Population, Motorized Vehicles, Respiratory Diseases and Ambient Air Total Suspended Particulates Concentrations

Lizamyl R. Laping | Ilde B. Deloria

Discipline: medical

 

Abstract:

This study determined the relationship of ambient air total suspendedparticulates concentrations with population, motorized vehicles and respiratorydiseases in Zamboanga City. The results showed that the ambient air TSPconcentrations from 2003 to 2009 improved and can be classified withinthe acceptable level for a fair environment, however, exceeded the annualallowable concentrations of 90 μg/Ncm. The correlation of ambient air TSPconcentrations using linear regression was high with urban population (R = 0.742 to 0.906) and very high with motorized vehicles (R = 0.781 to 0.894);both were significant at p<.05 for all the three stations but low or slightlycorrelated with morbidity (R = 0.20 to 0.316) and negligibly correlated withmortality cases due to respiratory diseases (R = 0.141 to 0.20). Multipleregression analysis showed high correlation (R = 0.736 to 0.771) of ambientair TSP concentrations to two variables only – urban population and motorizedvehicles but only significant at p < .05 for stations 1 and 2. Adding one or morevariables did not significantly improve the relationships of ambient air TSPconcentrations with other independent variables. The study recommendedfor the conduct of a detailed monitoring analysis by measuring ambient airTSP using particle size 2.5 (PM 2.5) with traffic count, considering the age,gender and respiratory diseases in health centers and hospitals within theurban barangays. Part of the recommendation was to examine other majorair pollutants which may have adverse health effects and other factors whichmay influence ambient air TSP concentrations.