Risk Management and Healthcare Policy (Jun 2020)
Potential Impacts of Meteorological Variables on Acute Ischemic Stroke Onset
Abstract
Xuemei Qi,1 Zhongyan Wang,2 Xiaoshuang Xia,1 Juanjuan Xue,1 Yumeng Gu,1 Suqin Han,3 Lin Wang,2 Xin Li,1,* Sean X Leng4,* 1Department of Neurology, The Second Hospital of Tianjin Medical University, Tianjin, People’s Republic of China; 2Department of Geriatrics, The Second Hospital of Tianjin Medical University, Tianjin, People’s Republic of China; 3Tianjin Environmental Meteorology Center, Tianjin 300074, People’s Republic of China; 4Division of Geriatric Medicine and Gerontology, School of Medicine, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD, USA*These authors contributed equally to this workCorrespondence: Xin LiDepartment of Neurology, The Second Hospital of Tianjin Medical University, No. 23, PingJiang Road, Tianjin 300211, People’s Republic of ChinaTel +86 22 8832 8514Fax +86 22 2830 9286Email [email protected] X LengDivision of Geriatric Medicine and Gerontology, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, 5501 Hopkins Bayview Circle, Baltimore, MD 21224, USATel/ Fax +1 41 0550 2494Email [email protected]: The effects of meteorological parameters on stroke occurrence remain debated. The aim of the study was to assess the association between meteorological parameters and ischemic stroke onset in cold seasons in Tianjin.Patients and Methods: Patients with acute ischemic stroke (946) were identified by standard sampling from one stroke unit in the Second Hospital of Tianjin Medical University, Tianjin, China, from 10/1/2014 to 4/30/2019. Generalized linear Poisson regression models were used to explore the effect of meteorological parameters (air temperature, barometric pressure, and relative humidity) on daily ischemic stroke onset after adjusting for air pollutants, day of week, and public holiday.Results: The results showed that ischemic stroke onset was positively associated with the diurnal variation of temperature (β coefficient: 0.020, 95% CI [0.001, 0.038] p< 0.05). Significant positive correlation between ischemic stroke onset and barometric pressure (mean, minimum) was found (β coefficient: 0.010, 95% CI [0.001,0.019] p< 0.05; 0.010, 95% CI [0.001,0.019] p< 0.05). The subgroup analysis considering age and gender difference showed that the older and the female were more vulnerable to weather conditions.Conclusion: Our study demonstrated that there was a measurable effect of weather parameters on daily ischemic stroke onset in colder seasons, suggesting that meteorological variables may, at least in part, play as risk factors for ischemic stroke onset, especially for the aging and female population.Keywords: cold temperature, air pressure, ischemic stroke
