The mail goal of this work was to evaluate the occurence of chronic respiratory illness in some geographical situations in the state of São Paulo and it's possible correlation with changes in the local environmental conditions. This project was coordinated by the NGO ECOFORCE- Research and Developmentand with the participation of the Departament of Environmental Health of the Public Health College of the University of São Paulo (FSP/USP), the Atmospheric Pollution Laboratory of the Medical School of the University of São Paulo (FM/USP), and with the support of the Environmental Monitoring Center (Embrapa-NMA), General Ecology Departament of the Biosciences Institute of (IB/USP) and Sciences and Applications of Space Technology Center of University of Campinas (NUCATE/UNICAMP).
A simple random sample was used to study 29,2% of all of the Campinas county health centers, 31,7% in São José dos Campos, 34% in Ribeirão Preto and 50% in Atibaia. The whole population of reference books in these centers was 171.177 of which only 8,500 were samples (5%). The statistical analysis of the daily data of the occurence of chronic respiratory illness, of each book from 1990 to 1992, showed a significant difference between counties: Ribeirão Preto with 1,58%; Atibaia with 1,80%; São José dos Campos with 4,27% e Campinas with 6,31%. The confidence interval is 95% for each county with a reduced error in relation to the county means. The incidence of diseases and data in the reference books showed the same treads. The mathematical and statistical crossing of temperature daily data with data in the reference books showed that the level of data in the reference books and also the risk of occurence of respiratory diseases crises are identical in Atibaia and Ribeirão Preto. The control of this phenomenon is due to changes in the temperature, but other environmetal factors were not statistically significant. When you have Atibaia as a reference with a zero risk of illness occurence, it increases about 40% in the case of São José dos Campos and reach almost 90% in Campinas. In the last two cases, besides temperature, other environmental factors contribute to this increase with statistical significance.
