Ground-Level Ozone as Community-Acquired Pneumonia Risk Factor in Different Population Groups in Summer: The Case of Moscow

A correlation between the near-surface ozone concentration in the urban atmosphere and hospitalizations of community-acquired pneumonia patients has been analyzed based on a long-term (five years) series of observations in the warm season in Moscow, Russia. The study included hospitalization records for patients over 15 years old. One of the main goals was to reveal vulnerable groups of the urban population that react most strongly to increased ozone concentrations. It has been shown that increased near-surface ozone concentrations lead to increased hospitalizations. Older people (over 60 years old) are most sensitive to the negative impact of air pollution. Women in this age group are more sensitive to the effects of ozone air pollution than men. In the middle-aged group (31–60 years), the highest correlation between the number of community-acquired pneumonia cases and the ozone level in the atmospheric surface layer, conversely, was in men, but it was still lower than the rate in older people. The young people (15–30 years old) group turned out to be insensitive to the near-surface air pollution.