Exposure to air pollution and risk of prevalence of childhood allergic rhinitis: A meta-analysis.

Objectives: Allergic rhinitis (AR), a common chronic inflammatory disease in the upper airways. The prevalence of AR in children seems to be increasing recently, and the most significant causes of the increase are thought to be changes in environmental factors, especially air pollution. However, we could not find any meta-analysis on the risk of air pollution exposure on the prevalence of AR in childhood. The aim of this research was to carry out a meta-analysis on the results of recent studies (21 s t century) to present valid information about exposure to air pollution and risk of prevalence of childhood AR.

Methods: PubMed, Science, Google Scholar, Elsevier and MDPI web database were searched up to January 1, 2000 to February 28, 2018. Including of air pollution and AR in childhood related to the observation of literature. Meta-analysis, study quality assessment, heterogeneity analysis and publication bias test were using Stata-MP 14.1 and Review Manager version 5.3 software.

Results: 13 studies will be included in the meta-analysis (8 cross-sectional studies, 5 cohort studies). Exposure to NO (OR = 1.031, 95%CI [1.002,1.060], P = 0.033; OR = 1.236, 95%CI [1.099,1.390], P = 0.000; OR = 1.138, 95%CI [1.052,1.231], P = 0.001); Exposure to SO (OR = 1.148, 95%CI [1.030,1.279], P = 0.012; OR = 1.044, 95%CI [0.954,1.142], P = 0.352; OR = 1.085, 95%CI [1.013,1.163], P = 0.020); Exposure to PM (OR = 1.190, 95%CI [1.092,1.297], P = 0.000; OR = 1.075, 95%CI [0.995,1.161], P = 0.066; OR = 1.125, 95%CI [1.062,1.191], P = 0.000); Exposure to PM (OR = 1.195, 95%CI [1.050,1.360], P = 0.007; OR = 1.163, 95%CI [1.074,1.260], P = 0.000; OR = 1.172, 95%CI [1.095,1.254], P = 0.000).

Conclusions: Exposed to air pollution probable is a risk of prevalence of childhood AR. And the prevalence of AR will be increase when exposed to NO, SO, PM and PM, but maybe the relationship between SO/PM and prevalence of AR are not closely in Asia.