The association between diurnal temperature range and clinic visits for upper respiratory tract infection among college students in Wuhan, China.

Han Zhang,Chuangxin Wu,Faxue Zhang,Huan Feng,Miaoxuan Zhang,Wei Zhu

doi:10.1007/s11356-021-15777-3

Abstract

The effects of daily mean temperature on health outcomes have been discussed in many previous studies, but few have considered the adverse impacts on upper respiratory tract infection (URTI) due to variance of temperature in one day. Diurnal temperature range (DTR) was a novel indicator calculated as maximum temperature minus minimum temperature on the same day. In this study, generalized additive model (GAM) with quasi-Poisson distribution was used to investigate the association between DTR and the number of daily outpatient visits for URTI among college students. Data about meteorological factors and air pollutants were provided by Hubei Meteorological Bureau and Wuhan Environmental Protection Bureau, respectively. Outpatient visits data were collected from the Hospital of Wuhan University from January 1, 2016, to December 31, 2018. Short-term exposure to DTR was associated with the increased risk of outpatient for URTI among all college students. Per 1 °C increased in DTR was associated with 0.73% (95%CI: 0.24, 1.21) increased in outpatient visits of all college students for URTI at lag 0 day. The greatest effect values were observed in males [1.35% (95%CI: 0.33,2.39)] at lag 0-6 days, and in females [0.86% (95%CI: 0.24, 1.49)] at lag 0-1 days. DTR had more adverse health impact in autumn and winter. Public health departments should consider the negative effect of DTR to formulate more effective prevention and control measures for protecting vulnerable people.

Highlights

Upper respiratory tract infection (URTI) is a common disease among people, with respiratory symptoms including cough, stuffy nose, sniffling and sore throat, etc
In this study, generalized additive model (GAM) with quasi-Poisson distribution was used to investigate the association between Diurnal temperature range (DTR) and the number of daily outpatient visits for upper respiratory tract infection (URTI) among college students
Per 1 °C increased in DTR was associated with 0.89% (95%confidence intervals (CI): 0.40, 1.38) increased in outpatient visits of all college students for URTI at lag 0 day

Summary

Introduction

Upper respiratory tract infection (URTI) is a common disease among people, with respiratory symptoms including cough, stuffy nose, sniffling and sore throat, etc. A previous study found that in Italy URTI accounted for about four-fifths of the outpatients for respiratory diseases in emergency department visits in people aged 0–18 years (Bono et al 2016). Cross-sectional studies pointed out that URTI took up 30.1% of respiratory disorders and 26.4% of all hospital outpatient cases in Hong Kong (Lo et al 2011; Nelson et al 2007). The high cost of human life and suffering caused by climate change will significantly affect economic output, with more than 302 billion potential labor hours lost in 2019. India and Indonesia were the most affected countries, and the economic impact of their lost potential labor hours was equivalent to 4–6% of their annual gross domestic product (GDP). In 2018, the monetization cost of heat-related deaths in Europe was equivalent to 1.2% of the region's gross national income, which corresponded to the sum of the average annual income of 11 million European citizens (Cai et al 2021)

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Conclusion