GIS-based ecological analysis of environmental risk factors on allergic diseases in seoul, korea

Over 10 million people suffer the adverse effects of allergic diseases in South Korea, causing the treatment expenses of approximately USD 600 million annually. Most of the disease burdens are concentrated in urban regions like Seoul, but the difficulty in identifying areas with the highest risk of allergic diseases makes their environmental health interventions remain curative instead of preventive. Most of the existing studies have been dedicated to explore indoor and outdoor environmental risk factors of allergic diseases, but their findings were not intended for use as a guide to highlight critical areas for targeted intervention. In this study we integrated environmental sampling and household survey data from the Ministry of Environment (2010-2011) with other data for various environmental indicators in the geographic information system (GIS) framework, and constructed a spatial models to examine an ecological association between allergic disease prevalence and various environmental risk factors aggregated at the district level in Seoul. The resulting model uses weighted risk factors to provide priority themes with five categories which was used to illustrate a district-level risk index map in Seoul for each of the three types of allergic diseases such as asthma, allergic rhinitis, and atopic dermatitis. The GIS-based ecological modeling approach would provide a guideline to environmental and public health policymakers in allocating limited resources to the areas at greater risk for allergic disease, which can be also expanded to include risk indices for a variety of other environmental health problems. The methods applied to the data in Seoul can be extended to the other areas in Korea and internationally.