Asthma exacerbation and air pollution

Although it is well known that exposure to air pollution can trigger asthma attacks, the details of how this occurs is poorly understood. In this research, we want to understand the link between air pollution exposure and asthma attacks (treated in primary care) before, during and after the COVID-19 pandemic. We know that that during the COVID-19 pandemic there were big changes in the patterns of inhaler prescribing for people with asthma. In addition, restrictions and lockdowns led to major changes in levels of traffic-related air pollution concentrations. At the same time there were falls in numbers of asthma attacks. These sudden changes provide a useful opportunity to explore the mechanisms of how air pollution, inhaler use, and asthma attacks are interrelated.

The goal of this study is therefore to work out how these two changes influenced the link between air pollution and asthma exacerbation. We’ll look at the prescription records of asthma patients in east London over the three years leading up to COVID-19 (2017-2019) and estimate the size of air pollution as a risk factor for asthma attacks during that time. Then, for the COVID-19 period (2020-2022), we’ll extract these data and compare the size of the air pollution risk factor for asthma attacks to pre-COVID levels. We expect to see stronger association between asthma exacerbation and air pollution exposure before COVID-19, compared to the COVID-19 period.