Particulate Suspended Matter (PM10) and Cases of Respiratory Diseases in Shenyang China

Shenyang is one of biggest cities in china with strong economy and convenient transport networks. The economy of this city mainly relies on manufacturing and heavy industries, so during the rapidly development, air pollution become one of the problems of this city. Local government have already done several actions to change the air quality of city. But due to people long term exposure to air pollutants, the health impacts cannot be ignored in this city. There are many types of air pollutants and many kinds of airborne diseases, this thesis selected suspended particulate matter-- PM10 as an example of air pollutants and chose respiratory disease as an example of airborne disease. The objective of this research is to investigate the existence of a possible relationship between suspended particulate matter levels and cases of respiratory diseases from a systematic sample of medical and air pollution records in the metropolitan area of Shenyang. There are three research questions: (i) what is the level of PM 10 in the study area and how it varies with the change of winter and summer seasons? (ii) How the number of respiratory diseases varies with the increased of air pollution (PM 10) and the change of winter and summer seasons? (iii) What is perception of local people regard to increase of air pollution and the increased number of respiratory diseases. The research type in this study is an exploratory research. The research strategy applies was survey and archival analysis. This research collected data from guanbei community which is located next to two heating provision factories and Renji hospital, meanwhile in this research area also has Huanggu Monitoring Station which takes the responsibility to measure the concentration of air pollutants. A purposive sampling technique was used to choose key persons/experts and citizens. Sixty (60) questionnaires and ten (10) interviews were applied. Records of emergency cases of the year 2010(months of January February, June, July, August and December) were collected at Renji hospital and suspended particulate matter--PM10 of the 2010 (months of January February, June, July, August and December)at monitoring station. The most important finding are : (i) In generally, PM10 concentration (24hours) of six month( January, February, June, July, August and December) in research area is higher than municipal guidelines (150ug/m-3 24hours), and it varies with the change of seasons. Level of PM10 in wintertime is noticeable higher than in summertime. (ii) The number of respiratory cases varies with the increases of air pollution (PM10) and the changes between winter and summer time. The data collected from Renji hospital revealed that cases of respiratory disease appeared more frequently during the winter than summertime with winter having higher concentration of PM10. The data collected from 2005 to 2010 also shows that the increased number of respiratory cases varies with increases in PM10 concentration (iii) Most citizens (58%) realised the possibility of a relationship between increases in air pollution and the increased number of respiratory cases. Research has shown that citizens also tend to think that long term diseases such as chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and Pulmonary edema are the most common illnesses related to air quality. We can finalize that there is a possible relationship between the increasing of air pollution and the increasing number of respiratory cases.