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. 2022 Jan 25;22(1):172.
doi: 10.1186/s12889-021-11994-0.

Effect of ambient temperature on outpatient admission for osteoarthritis and rheumatoid arthritis in a subtropical Chinese city

Desheng Zhao  1 , Jian Cheng  2 , Ping Bao  1 , Yanwu Zhang  3 , Fengjuan Liang  1 , Hao Wang  4 , Xu Wang  5 , Shiyuan Fang  6 , Hong Su  7
Affiliations

Effect of ambient temperature on outpatient admission for osteoarthritis and rheumatoid arthritis in a subtropical Chinese city

Desheng Zhao et al. BMC Public Health. .

Abstract

Background: Current findings on the impact of weather conditions on osteoarthritis (OA) and rheumatoid arthritis (RA) are sparse and not conclusive. This study aimed to investigate the relationship between temperature change and OA/RA admission.

Methods: Daily OA/RA admission, meteorological data and pollutants from 1 January 2014 to 31 December 2017 in Hefei, China, were collected. We quantified the relationship between ambient temperature and OA/RA admission using a distributed lag nonlinear model (DLNM). Stratified analyses by gender and age were also examined.

Results: Temperature decrease was significantly associated with RA admission (25th percentile of temperature versus 50th percentile of temperature), with the acute and largest effect at current days lag (RR: 1.057, 95%CI: 1.005-1.111). However, no significant association between temperature and OA admission was observed. When conducting subgroup analyses by individual characteristics, we found that females and patients aged 41-65 years were more vulnerable to temperature decrease than males, patients aged 0-40 and ≧66 years, respectively.

Conclusions: This study suggested that temperature decrease was a risk factor for increases in RA admission. Females and patients aged 41-65 years were particularly vulnerable to the effect of temperature decrease.

Keywords: Admission; Osteoarthritis; Rheumatoid arthritis; Temperature.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare they have no competing financial interests.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
Overall effects of exposure-response associations between temperature change and outpatient admission for OA and RA
Fig. 2
Fig. 2
The specific cumulative effects of temperature decrease on RA admission by gender, age and classification of arthritis at different lag days, with P25 of temperature versus P50
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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