Association of Essential Hypertension Cases and Ground-Level Ozone Concentrations in Tbilisi (2015-2018)

Abstract

Long-term ozone exposure shows certain associations with health characteristics such as blood pressure, hypertension, and body mass index.

Ozone exposure may be an important risk factor for both dynamic and accelerated progression of noncommunicable diseases in elderly populations with hypertension, diabetes mellitus, or dyslipidemia.

Methods: We obtained quantitative data on ground-level ozone levels and incidence rates of essential hypertension. The ground-level ozone study was conducted in 2015-2018, and we used NCDC data to find the incidence rates of various diseases, including essential hypertension.

The aim of the study is to determine correlations between ground-level ozone levels and the incidence of essential hypertension.

Results: The study of the correlation between ozone levels and cases of essential hypertension showed that the value of the Pearson coefficient was r=-0.3765 (p=0.011). This relationship is inversely correlated, that is, the higher the ozone level, the lower the number of cases of essential hypertension.

Conclusions

1. At ground-level ozone levels equal to or less than the median, the incidence of essential hypertension is significantly increased (p<0.05),
2. In 2015-2018 In the autumn months, ozone levels show a significant inverse correlation with the incidence rates of essential hypertension (r - 0.709; p 0.022), hypertensive heart disease (r - 0.714; p 0.020).

Practical recommendations:

It is necessary to constantly monitor air quality and develop new initiatives to improve it.

The level of environmental pollutants should be constantly determined in order to warn the population in time to reduce harmful effects (reduce stay in open spaces, reduce the penetration of outdoor air pollutants into the indoor space).