The association between space weather conditions and emergency hospital admissions for myocardial infarction during different stages of solar activity

Abstract

A number of studies have established the effects of space weather on the human cardio-vascular system. We investigated whether geomagnetic storms (GS), solar proton events (SPEs), and X-class solar flare affect the risk of emergency hospitalization for acute myocardial infarction (MI) separately during declining (2004–2006) and rising (2010–2012) phases of solar activity. The data on hospital admissions for MI were obtained from the computer database of Lithuanian University of Health sciences from January 1, 2004 to December 31, 2012. We evaluated the associations between space weather conditions and the daily number of emergency admissions for MI by Poisson regression, controlling for seasonal variation and weekdays. During 2004–2006, an increase in the risk of hospital admission for MI was observed on days of the daily mean proton >10MeV flux >100pfu (by 63%, p<0.001) and on days of GS concomitant with SPE, 1–2 days following these events, and on days of SPE occurring 1–2 days before GS concomitant with SPE (by 26%, p=0.019). During 2010–2012, an increase in the risk of hospital admission for MI was observed on days of the daily mean proton >10MeV flux >100pfu (by 52%, p=0.015) and on days of GS and 1–2 days after GS (by 17%, p=0.024).These findings suggest that the impact of hazardous space weather conditions on human health depends of the strength of space storm during the investigated period.