Cultural Festivals

Thaipusam showed increased asthma emergency department visits despite below-average PSI, suggesting indoor air quality was implicated. The modest PSI increase during festival periods suggests pollutants not captured well by PSI may contribute to asthma effects. Festival periods were associated with nearly twice as many mean daily asthma emergency department visits as non-festival periods. Chinese festivals involving extensive outdoor incense burning had significantly higher PSI and increased emergency department visits. Indoor candle and aromatic oil burning can produce very high particulate matter concentrations.