To reduce human exposure to particulate matter (PM), governments have enacted various preventive measures, to which a warning system is central. To the best of our knowledge, we are the first to assess the effectiveness of mobile-based warning systems on respiratory health outcomes, examining two types of (particles less than in diameter) alerts via text messaging systems: Wireless Emergency Alert (WEA) and Air Quality Information Text (AIT) as employed in South Korea from January 2015 to October 2019. We used a generalized additive model to control the non-linear relationship between the level and the number of hospital visits and admissions for four respiratory sicknesses—chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, respiratory tract infection, asthma, and pneumonia—while deciphering how such visits and admissions are reduced by the warning systems. Our results found that both systems reduced the number of new patients with the four sicknesses at a 5% statistical significance level. Of the two, WEA was found to be more effective than AIT. The former reduced the number of new patients by 16.4%, while the latter did so by 2.8%. WEA is for everyone with a cell phone connection. By sending simple and direct alerts to a broader range of people, WEA would help people to reduce the chance of short-term exposure to PM in general. The findings provide evidence with policy implications regarding air pollution adaptation.

为了减少人类对颗粒物 (PM) 的暴露，各国政府制定了各种预防措施，其中以预警系统为核心。据我们所知，我们是第一个评估基于移动的警报系统对呼吸系统健康结果的有效性的公司，通过短信系统检查两种类型（颗粒小于直径）警报：无线紧急警报 (WEA) 和2015 年 1 月至 2019 年 10 月在韩国使用的空气质量信息文本 (AIT)。我们使用广义加性模型来控制四种呼吸系统疾病（慢性阻塞性肺病、呼吸道感染、哮喘和肺炎）的级别以及就诊和入院次数，同时解读警告系统如何减少此类就诊和入院。我们的结果发现，两个系统都以 5% 的统计显着性水平减少了患有四种疾病的新患者数量。在这两者中，WEA 被发现比 AIT 更有效。前者使新患者人数减少了 16.4%，而后者则减少了 2.8%。WEA 适用于拥有手机连接的每个人。通过向更广泛的人群发送简单而直接的警报，WEA 将帮助人们减少总体上短期暴露于 PM 的机会。研究结果提供了关于空气污染适应政策影响的证据。