Climate and children with bronchial asthma: a case study for the Russian Far East

Аннотация

Bronchial asthma (BA) continuously increases during the last century, and to date, has reached 15% of the world’s child population. Respiratory system and bronchial asthma morbidity are the fi rst in the list of climate-sensitive diseases, and children compound a climate-high-risk group of the population. In recent years, there has been a steady growth of BA among children and teenagers of the Khabarovsk Krai, Russia; among teenagers, this number has doubled in the last ten years. The aim of the current study is to carry a comprehensive analysis covering climatic factors for bronchial asthma in children and teenagers, at the southern part of the Russian Far East (FE). The study area is located in monsoon climate of temperate latitudes characterized by extreme annual air temperature amplitude, with cold Siberian winter and tropically hot and sultry summer. Assessment of weather impact on children with BA in Khabarovsk, administrative center of the FE, for period 2013–2014 shows that the BA visits have a seasonal regime with peaks in spring (March – April) and in autumn – early winter (November – December), when day-to-day changes in temperature are large, and in summer (July) due to a large number of allergens (fl owering plant-allergens), when various allergic diseases exacerbate. At the same time, huge peaks in BA visits have been found in November, 2013 and in April, 2014, that can be estimated as consequences of catastrophic fl ooding at the Amur River in August-September, 2013.