The effects of ambient temperature on outpatient visits for varicella and herpes zoster in Shanghai, China: a time-series study. Academic Article uri icon

abstract

  • BACKGROUND: The seasonality of varicella and herpes zoster has been widely observed, but there is limited evidence on their associations with ambient temperature. OBJECTIVE: The associations between ambient temperature and outpatient visits for varicella and herpes zoster were examined. METHODS: We collected daily outpatient visit data for varicella (N = 3520) and herpes zoster (N = 6614) from a major hospital in Shanghai, China, from 2008 to 2010. We adopted the generalized additive model in time-series analysis to investigate the short-term associations between temperature and outpatient visits for varicella and herpes zoster after controlling for seasonal trends, day of the week, and humidity. RESULTS: A 1C increase in daily mean temperature was associated with a 1.33% (95% confidence interval 0.93%-1.74%) decrease in outpatient visits for varicella whereas it was associated with a 2.18% (95% confidence interval 1.90%-2.46%) increase in outpatient visits for herpes zoster. LIMITATIONS: Only 1 hospital was included and we did not control for individual-level risk factors. CONCLUSION: Our results demonstrated that temperature variation might be an important risk factor for varicella and herpes zoster in China.

published proceedings

  • J Am Acad Dermatol

altmetric score

  • 1.25

author list (cited authors)

  • Yang, Y., Chen, R., Xu, J., Li, Q., Xu, X., Ha, S., ... Kan, H.

citation count

  • 10

complete list of authors

  • Yang, Yingying||Chen, Renjie||Xu, Jinhua||Li, Qiao||Xu, Xiaohui||Ha, Sandie||Song, Weimin||Tan, Jianguo||Xu, Feng||Kan, Haidong

publication date

  • January 2015