Effects of weather and air pollution on outpatient visits for insect-and-mite-caused dermatitis: an empirical and predictive analysis.
BMC Public Health
; 24(1): 633, 2024 Feb 28.
Article
em En
| MEDLINE
| ID: mdl-38419007
ABSTRACT
BACKGROUND:
Dermatitis caused by insects and mites, diagnosed as papular urticaria or scabies, is a common skin disease. However, there is still a lack of studies about the effects of weather and air pollution on outpatient visits for this disease. This study aims to explore the impacts of meteorological and environmental factors on daily visits of dermatitis outpatients.METHODS:
Analyses are conducted on a total of 43,101 outpatient visiting records during the years 2015-2020 from the largest dermatology specialist hospital in Guangzhou, China. Hierarchical cluster models based on Pearson correlation between risk factors are utilized to select regression variables. Linear regression models are fitted to identify the statistically significant associations between the risk factors and daily visits, taking into account the short-term effects of temperatures. Permutation importance is adopted to evaluate the predictive ability of these factors.RESULTS:
Short-term temperatures have positive associations with daily visits and exhibit strong predictive abilities. In terms of total outpatients, the one-day lagged temperature not only has a significant impact on daily visits, but also has the highest median value of permutation importance. This conclusion is robust across most subgroups except for subgroups of summer and scabies, wherein the three-day lagged temperature has a negative effect. By contrast, air pollution has insignificant associations with daily visits and exhibits weak predictive abilities. Moreover, weekdays, holidays and trends have significant impacts on daily visits, but with weak predictive abilities.CONCLUSIONS:
Our study suggests that short-term temperatures have positive associations with daily visits and exhibit strong predictive abilities. Nevertheless, air pollution has insignificant associations with daily visits and exhibits weak predictive abilities. The results of this study provide a reference for local authorities to formulate intervention measures and establish an environment-based disease early warning system.Palavras-chave
Texto completo:
1
Bases de dados:
MEDLINE
Assunto principal:
Escabiose
/
Dermatite
/
Poluentes Atmosféricos
/
Poluição do Ar
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Ácaros
Limite:
Animals
/
Humans
País/Região como assunto:
Asia
Idioma:
En
Revista:
BMC Public Health
Assunto da revista:
SAUDE PUBLICA
Ano de publicação:
2024
Tipo de documento:
Article
País de afiliação:
China