Air pollution is a risk factor for the population health. Its harmful effects on the population are observed even when the atmospheric pollutants are within the parameters set out in specific legislation, and they develop mainly through respiratory diseases. The aim of this study was to analyze the relationship between the concentrations of air pollutants and the incidence of respiratory diseases in the city of Porto Alegre, in 2005 and 2006. Applied multiple linear regression analysis, ordinal logistic regression and generalized linear models were used in the work. The results show good adjustment by the three techniques. The ordinal logistic regression detected only positive influence of air temperature and relative humidity in hospitalizations for respiratory diseases. Multiple linear regression related negatively hospitalizations with meteorological variables and positively with the particulate matter (PM10). The generalized linear model detected negative influence of meteorological variables and positive of pollutants, tropospheric ozone (O3) and PM10 in hospitalizations. Comparing the three statistical techniques to analyze the same data set, it can be concluded that all of them had a model with good fit to the data, but the technique of generalized linear models showed higher sensitivity in capturing the influence of pollutants, except in ordinal logistic regression and multiple linear regression.
