Effects of weather variability and air pollutants on emergency admissions for cardiovascular and cerebrovascular diseases

Abstract

We examined the effect of ambient temperature, air pressure and air pollutants on daily emergency admissions by identifying the cause of admission for each type of stroke and cardiovascular disease using generalized linear Poisson regression models allowing for overdispersion, and controlling for seasonal and inter annual variations, days of the week and public holidays, levels of influenza and respiratory syncytial viruses. Every 1 °C decrease in mean temperature was associated with an increase in the daily number of emergency admissions by 7.83% (95%CI 2.06-13.25) for acute coronary syndrome (ACS) and heart failure, by 35.57% (95%CI 15.59-59.02) for intracerebral haemorrhage (ICH) and by 11.71% (95%CI 4.1-19.89) for cerebralinfarction. An increase of emergency admissions due to ICH (3.25% (95%CI 0.94-5.51)), heart failure (3.56% (95%CI 1.09-5.96)) was observed at every 1hPa decrease in air pressure from the previous days. We found stronger detrimental effect of cold on stroke than cardiovascular disease.

The Effect of Season and Temperature Variation on Hospital Admissions for Incident Stroke Events in Maputo, Mozambique

“…Low temperatures, on the other hand, were shown to induce vasoconstriction, increased blood pressure, enhanced platelet aggregation, sympathetic nervous system activation, and increased levels of C-reactive protein, fibrinogen, and activated VII factor. 31,32 Our results also showed that temperature variations are more likely to affect stroke incidence than absolute temperature which is in accordance with previous evidence from Brazil, 3 Germany, 13 Japan, 33 Korea 4 and Portugal. 34 The clinicians' perception of increased incidence of stroke after sudden drops in temperature is in accordance with our results, and this effect was shown to be more pronounced with minimum temperature variations than with maximum temperature changes, despite the latter are more pronounced.…”

Effects of Meteorological Conditions on the Risk of Ischemic Stroke Events in Patients Treated with Alteplase—HEWS-tPA

“…Similar to our findings, the association between low ambient temperature and the occurrence of ischemic stroke has been observed in several countries. 5,6 Only study in Israel has shown that high ambient temperatures are associated with an increase in the incidence of ischemic stroke. 7 A possible reason for this discrepancy might be differences in the climate, population characteristics, and proportion of stroke subtypes of the studied areas.…”

“…Several studies have demonstrated a seasonal variation and an influence of meteorological factors on the occurrence of ischemic stroke events. 3,4 Some studies have shown that low ambient temperature is associated with an increase in ischemic stroke occurrence, 5,6 whereas others have shown that high ambient temperatures are associated with an increase in the incidence of ischemic stroke. 7 Therefore, there is still considerable controversy as to whether there are any influences of meteorological factors on stroke occurrence.…”

Relationship Between Cold Temperature and Cardiovascular Mortality, With Assessment of Effect Modification by Individual Characteristics

“…14 It is necessary to be able to identify which people are easily influenced by weather conditions. Most previous studies examining the association between cardiovascular mortality and meteorological factors used vital statistics from the study area.…”