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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Public Health
Sec. Environmental Health and Exposome
Volume 13 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fpubh.2025.1532507
Correlation analysis between the prevalence of common respiratory pathogens and exposure to ambient air pollutants in central China, 2014-2022
Provisionally accepted
Xiaohua Chen 1*
Yaqi Zhu 2 Yuying Hou 3 Ting Xiang 1 Yingtao Wu 1
Cao Xiaojian 4 Xiaoxue Wu 2 Jinya Ding 1
Zhou Xiong Hui 3- 1 General Hospital of Central Theater Command, Wuhan, China
- 2 Center of Clinical Laboratory, Hubei Maternal and Child Health Hospital, Wuhan, Hebei Province, China
- 3 Hubei Provincial Key Laboratory of Agricultural Bioinformatics, College of Informatics, Huazhong Agricultural University, Wuhan, Hebei Province, China
- 4 State Key Laboratory of Agricultural Microbiology, College of Life Science and Technology, Huazhong Agricultural University, Wuhan, Hubei Province, China
Background：Whether ambient air pollutants affect the transmission of respiratory pathogens in central Wuhan is unknown. So, we conducted a series of statistical analyses to discover the correlation between the two.: We enrolled a total of 47,668 outpatient and hospitalized patients who underwent IgM antibody tests for nine types of respiratory pathogens, namely Legionella Pneumophila type 1 (LP1), Mycoplasma Pneumoniae (MP), Q Fever Rickettsia (QFR), Chlamydia Pneumoniae (CP), Adenovirus (ADV), Respiratory Syncytial Virus (RSV), Influenza Virus A (FluA), Influenza Virus B (FluB) and Parainfluenza Virus (PIVs) between January 2014 and December 2022. Monthly measurements were taken for specific air pollutants including Fine Particulate Matter 2.5 (PM2.5), Inhalable Particulate Matter 10 (PM10), Ozone (O3), Nitrogen Dioxide (NO2), Sulfur Dioxide (SO2) and Carbon monoxide (CO) at the same periods. The association between different respiratory pathogen infections and major air pollutants was primarily analyzed using Spearman Correlation Analysis. Conclusions: MP, LP1, and FluB are correlated with respiratory infections and have been identified as potential causative agents. Elevated levels of O3 were found to augment the incidence of MP infection, we have firstly discovered the positive correlation between SO2 and ADV infection, CO and LP1 infection. The presence of air pollutants in Wuhan showed a significant correlation with respiratory pathogens, and elevated levels of air pollution facilitated their transmission to individuals.
Keywords: respiratory pathogens, Respiratory Tract Infections, Epidemiological characteristics, Air Pollutants, Prevalence
Received: 03 Dec 2024; Accepted: 06 Feb 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Chen, Zhu, Hou, Xiang, Wu, Xiaojian, Wu, Ding and Hui. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence:
Xiaohua Chen, General Hospital of Central Theater Command, Wuhan, China
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