STATISTICAL INFLUENCE OF LOCAL WEATHER ON CARDIOVASCULAR MORTALITY IN HUNGARY

Abstract

Possible effects of weather anomalies on mortality in cardiovascular illnesses are investigated in Hungary. Long-term (1971-2005) archives of ca. 2.0 million fatalities are analyzed. The mortality data are individually opposed to seven diurnal meteorological parameters, i.e. the mean, maxima and minima of temperature, cloudiness, wind speed, relative humidity and sea-level pressure. All investigations are performed for Budapest, with ca. 2 million urban dwellers, and for the rest of the county (the ‘rural’), representing over 8 million inhabitants in average of the 35 investigated years. The results support the decreasing (in winter) and increasing (in summer) effect of temperature on cardiovascular mortality in the rural environment, but this effect is not evident in summer for Budapest. Statistical effects of the other weather variables are less unequivocal.

Keywords

• cardiovascular mortality
• local weather
• urban and rural effects
• Hungary