Correlations Between Particulate Matter and Respiratory Morbidity in Romanian Counties

152 monitoring stations track particulate matter (PM10 and PM2.5) concentrations across 42 counties in Romania. Dragos-Cosmin Zaharia analyzed correlations between yearly average PM values and public health statistics for conditions like lung cancer and asthma. The dataset, last updated in June 2026, includes Spearman correlation results and linear regression models used to create avoidable burden maps.

Use Cases

• Modeling the relationship between PM2.5 concentrations and asthma admissions based on the reported linear regression coefficient
• Mapping avoidable health burdens for lung cancer based on the coarse particle fraction effect described in the study
• Comparing health outcomes between high and low pollution counties using the Welch T-test results for Gorj and Harghita
• Analyzing the impact of a 3-year exposure window on morbidity for lung cancer and asthma as identified in the regression models

Strengths

• Data is derived from 152 monitoring stations across 42 counties, providing geographic coverage
• Analysis includes specific statistical results, such as a correlation of r=0.31 between PM2.5 and asthma morbidity
• Includes concrete model outputs, like an increase of 5.28 asthma admissions per 100,000 inhabitants per 1 μg/m³ PM2.5

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download
• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment
• The description notes some correlation results were unreliable due to the high impact of the SARS-Cov2 pandemic on data

Provenance

Source

Dragos-Cosmin Zaharia via figshare

Collection Method

Analysis of PM monitoring data from 152 stations correlated with public health statistics

Freshness

Last updated 2026-06-04 05:40:38; freshness should be verified

Geography

42 counties of Romania