title: Association between temperature change and outpatient visits for respiratory tract infections among children in Guangzhou, China.
abstract: The current study examined the association between temperature change and clinical visits for childhood respiratory tract infections (RTIs) in Guangzhou, China. Outpatient records of clinical visits for pediatric RTIs, which occurred from 1 January 2012 to 31 December 2013, were collected from Guangzhou Women and Children's Hospital. Records for meteorological variables during the same period were obtained from the Guangzhou Meteorological Bureau. Temperature change was defined as the difference between the mean temperatures on two consecutive days. A distributed lag non-linear model (DLNM) was used to examine the impact of temperature change on pediatric outpatient visits for RTIs. A large temperature decrease was associated with a significant risk for an RTI, with the effect lasting for ~10 days. The maximum effect of a temperature drop (-8.8 °C) was reached at lag 2~3 days. Children aged 0-2 years, and especially those aged <1 year, were particularly vulnerable to the effects of temperature drop. An extreme temperature decrease affected the number of patient visits for both upper respiratory tract infections (URTIs) and lower respiratory tract infections (LRTIs). A temperature change between consecutive days, and particularly an extreme temperature decrease, was significantly associated with increased pediatric outpatient visits for RTIs in Guangzhou.
authors.affiliation: Division of Birth Cohort Study, Guangzhou Women and Children's Medical Center, Sun Yat-sen University, 9 Jinsui Road, Guangzhou 510623, China. PH04LY@163.com.
authors.forename: Yu
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Liu
authors.affiliation: Division of Birth Cohort Study, Guangzhou Women and Children's Medical Center, Sun Yat-sen University, 9 Jinsui Road, Guangzhou 510623, China. geyong084@163.com.
authors.forename: Yong
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Guo
authors.affiliation: Central Laboratory, Guangzhou Women and Children's Medical Center, Sun Yat-sen University, 9 Jinsui Road, Guangzhou 510623, China. changbingwang121@163.com.
authors.forename: Changbing
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.affiliation: Division of Birth Cohort Study, Guangzhou Women and Children's Medical Center, Sun Yat-sen University, 9 Jinsui Road, Guangzhou 510623, China. liweidong30303@163.com.
authors.forename: Weidong
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Li
authors.affiliation: Division of Birth Cohort Study, Guangzhou Women and Children's Medical Center, Sun Yat-sen University, 9 Jinsui Road, Guangzhou 510623, China. dearlu@126.com.
authors.forename: Jinhua
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Lu
authors.affiliation: Division of Birth Cohort Study, Guangzhou Women and Children's Medical Center, Sun Yat-sen University, 9 Jinsui Road, Guangzhou 510623, China. shsy_22@163.com.
authors.forename: Songying
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Shen
authors.affiliation: Division of Birth Cohort Study, Guangzhou Women and Children's Medical Center, Sun Yat-sen University, 9 Jinsui Road, Guangzhou 510623, China. huiminxia@hotmail.com.
authors.forename: Huimin
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Xia
authors.affiliation: Division of Birth Cohort Study, Guangzhou Women and Children's Medical Center, Sun Yat-sen University, 9 Jinsui Road, Guangzhou 510623, China. hjr0703@163.com.
authors.forename: Jianrong
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: He
authors.affiliation: Division of Birth Cohort Study, Guangzhou Women and Children's Medical Center, Sun Yat-sen University, 9 Jinsui Road, Guangzhou 510623, China. qxiu0161@163.com.
authors.forename: Xiu
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Qiu
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D002681:China / Q000453:epidemiology; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007223:Infant; D007231:Infant, Newborn; D008297:Male; D017711:Nonlinear Dynamics; D010045:Outpatients / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D012141:Respiratory Tract Infections / Q000453:epidemiology* / Q000209:etiology; D012621:Seasons; D013696:Temperature