Respiratory Health of School Children in Relation to Their Body Mass Index (BMI) During Crop Residue Burning Events in North Western India

• Published in: MĀPAN : journal of Metrology Society of India Vol. 33; no. 2; pp. 113 - 122
• Main Authors: Gupta, Sachin, Mittal, Susheel K., Agarwal, Ravinder
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: New Delhi Springer India 01.06.2018; Springer Nature B.V
• Subjects: Body mass index; Body size; Children; Crop residues; Mathematical and Computational Physics; Mathematical Methods in Physics; Measurement Science and Instrumentation; Numerical and Computational Physics; Original Paper; Parameters; Particulate emissions; Physics; Physics and Astronomy; Physiological effects; Physiology; Simulation; Theoretical; Wheat; Crop residue burning; Body mass index; Physiological parameters; Wheat and rice crops; Ambient particulate matter
• ISSN: 0970-3950; 0974-9853
• DOI: 10.1007/s12647-017-0245-1

Particulate matter levels and physiological parameters of 150 school going children were monitored continually for 3 years (2013–2016) at three agriculturally active sites. Percent changes in physiological parameters like forced vital capacity, peak expiratory flow, etc. were estimated using mixed effect model with adjustment of covariates such as BMI. Results show that the increase in fine PM levels were much more in rice seasons than in wheat seasons. During the burning episodes, severe adverse effects on physiological parameters of the selected subjects were observed due to enhanced PM 2.5 levels. Significant changes were observed in FVC (− 5.27 to − 7.53%) and PEF (− 4.89 to − 7.12%) in comparison to FEV 1 and FEF 25–75% . Respiratory health in terms of FVC and PEF corresponded very well with the body mass indices of the human subjects for different PM levels in the ambient air. The subjects having lower BMI level were affected more than those with normal and high BMI on exposure to same level of fine particulate matter. It has been concluded that the trends of fall in respiratory parameters were alarming especially for the subjects with lower and higher BMI during crop residue burning episodes.