Skip to main content

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

  • Comment
  • Published:

Ozone exposure and pediatric health: interpreting the evidence on Kawasaki disease

Pediatric Research (2025)Cite this article

Access through your institution
Buy or subscribe

The study Ozone exposure is positively correlated with the ocurrence of Kawasaki disease in Chinese children1 is part of a series of studies being conducted around the world to investigate the association between exposure to air pollutants, in this case ozone (O3), as a risk factor for Kawasaki disease (KD). Air pollution has been established as the leading environmental risk to health worldwide, as confirmed by the Second World Conference on Air Pollution (2025), and it is known that at least 7 million deaths are preventable each year. Furthermore, the burden of disease does not include conditions whose causality is still being studied, as is the case here. KD has seen an increase in incidence, especially in some countries, and is of interest due to its short- and long-term effects, especially cardiovascular effects.

Ozone, for its part, is causally linked to a variety of health effects, ranging from general symptoms (i.e., headache, decreased lung capacity) to the triggering of a generalized inflammatory process that may be related to various diseases, such as KD.

This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution

Access options

Access through your institution

Buy this article

  • Purchase on SpringerLink
  • Instant access to full article PDF
Buy now

Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout

References

  1. ShuHan, H. et al. Ozone exposure is positively correlated with the occurrence of Kawasaki disease in Chinese children. Pediatr. Res. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41390-025-04116-8 (2025).

  2. Kuo, N. C., Lin, C. H. & Lin, M. C. Prenatal and early life exposure to air pollution and the incidence of Kawasaki disease. Sci. Rep. 12, 3415 (2022).

    Article  CAS  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  3. Zhu, Y. et al. Short-term exposure to ozone may trigger the onset of Kawasaki disease: an individual-level, case-crossover study in East China. Chemosphere 349, 140828 (2024).

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  4. Yang, P. et al. Prenatal and postnatal ambient air pollution and Kawasaki disease: a systematic review and meta-analysis. JACC Adv. 4, 101651 (2025).

    Article  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Instituto Nacional de Salud Publica, Cuernavaca, Mexico

    Horacio Riojas-Rodríguez

Authors
  1. Horacio Riojas-Rodríguez
    View author publications

    Search author on:PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Horacio Riojas-Rodríguez.

Ethics declarations

Competing interests

The author declares no competing interests.

Additional information

Publisher’s note Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Riojas-Rodríguez, H. Ozone exposure and pediatric health: interpreting the evidence on Kawasaki disease. Pediatr Res (2025). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41390-025-04359-5

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41390-025-04359-5

Search

Advanced search

Quick links