Findings on the effects of weather on health, especially the effects of ambient
temperature on overall morbidity, remain inconsistent. We conducted a time series
study to examine the acute effects of meteorological factors (mainly air temperature)
on daily hospital outpatient admissions for cardiovascular disease (CVD) in Zunyi
City, China, from January 1, 2007 to November 30, 2009. We used the generalized
additive model with penalized splines to analyze hospital outpatient admissions,
climatic parameters, and covariate data. Results show that, in Zunyi, air temperature
was associated with hospital outpatient admission for CVD. When air temperature was
less than 10°C, hospital outpatient admissions for CVD increased 1.07-fold with each
increase of 1°C, and when air temperature was more than 10°C, an increase in air
temperature by 1°C was associated with a 0.99-fold decrease in hospital outpatient
admissions for CVD over the previous year. Our analyses provided statistically
significant evidence that in China meteorological factors have adverse effects on the
health of the general population. Further research with consistent methodology is
needed to clarify the magnitude of these effects and to show which populations and
individuals are vulnerable.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.