Sohail, H.B.; Tiittanen, P.; Kollanus, V.; Schneider, A.; Lanki, T. Heat, Heatwaves and Cardiorespiratory Hospital Admissions in Helsinki, Finland. Preprints2020, 2020090550. https://doi.org/10.20944/preprints202009.0550.v1
APA Style
Sohail, H.B., Tiittanen, P., Kollanus, V., Schneider, A., & Lanki, T. (2020). Heat, Heatwaves and Cardiorespiratory Hospital Admissions in Helsinki, Finland. Preprints. https://doi.org/10.20944/preprints202009.0550.v1
Chicago/Turabian Style
Sohail, H.B., Alexandra Schneider and Timo Lanki. 2020 "Heat, Heatwaves and Cardiorespiratory Hospital Admissions in Helsinki, Finland" Preprints. https://doi.org/10.20944/preprints202009.0550.v1
Abstract
There is a lack of knowledge concerning the effects of ambient heat exposure on morbidity in Northern Europe. Therefore, this study aimed to evaluate the relationships of daily summer-time temperature and heatwaves with cardiorespiratory hospital admissions in the Helsinki metropolitan area, Finland. Methods: Time-series models adjusted for potential confounders such as air pollution were used to investigate the associations of daily temperature and heatwaves with cause-specific cardiorespiratory hospital admissions, during summer months of 2001-2017. Daily number of hospitalizations was obtained from the national hospital discharge register, weather information from the Finnish Meteorological Institute. Results: Increased daily temperature was associated with decreased risk of total respiratory hospital admissions and asthma. Heatwave days were associated with 20.5% (95% CI: 6.9, 35.9) increased risk of pneumonia admissions and during long or intense heatwaves also with total respiratory admissions in the oldest age group (≥ 75 years). There were also suggestive positive associations between heatwave days and admissions due to myocardial infarction and cerebrovascular diseases. In contrast, risk of arrhythmia admissions was decreased 20.8% (95% CI: 8.0, 31.8) during heatwaves. Conclusions: Heatwaves, rather than single hot days, are a health threat affecting the morbidity even in a Northern climate.
Keywords
Heat; Heatwave; Cardiovascular diseases; Respiratory diseases; Hospital admissions; Climate change; ambient temperature; Public health; time series; summer months
Subject
Biology and Life Sciences, Other
Copyright:
This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
