Background: Post-adolescent acne is a common skin disease faced by adults. However, whether air pollution (AP) serves as a risk factor for post-adolescent acne remains elusive.
Aim: To determine the relationship between short-term AP exposure (within 7 days) and outpatient visits for post-adolescent acne.
Methods: Daily outpatient visit data for post-adolescent acne and routinely AP data between 2010 and 2013 were collected from Xi’an, China. A generalized additive regression model was used to analyze the relationship between outpatient visits for post-adolescent acne and short-term ambient AP exposure. The gender-specific analyses were conducted as well.
Results: Totally, 27,190 outpatient visits for post-adolescent acne were included. The results revealed that a 10 μg/m³ increase in PM₁₀, SO₂, and NO₂ at lag 0– 7 day was associated with the increase of outpatient visits for post-adolescent acne at 0.84% (95% CI: 0.53%, 1.16%), 1.61% (95% CI: 0.12%, 3.10%), and 3.50% (95% CI: 1.60%, 5.40%), respectively. The significant positive associations of PM₁₀, SO₂, and NO₂ were found at both single-lag models and moving average models. The gender-specific analyses showed that the effect estimates of PM₁₀ was stronger for females than for males, while there was no observed gender difference in the effects of SO₂ and NO₂.
Conclusion: Short-term exposure to AP was associated with increased outpatient visits for post-adolescent acne, especially for females in the effects of PM₁₀.
Keywords: short-term, air pollution, post-adolescent acne, adult acne, time-series analysis