title: Associations between Meteorological Factors and Aseptic Meningitis in Six Metropolitan Provinces of the Republic of Korea.
abstract: We assessed the association between climate factors and a number of aseptic meningitis cases in six metropolitan provinces of the Republic of Korea using a weekly number of cases from January 2002 to December 2012. Generalized linear quasi-Poisson models were applied to estimate the effects of climate factors on the weekly number of aseptic meningitis cases. We used generalized additive and generalized additive mixed models to assess dose-response relationships. A 1 °C increase in mean temperature was associated with an 11.4% (95% confidence interval (CI): 9.6%-13.3%) increase in aseptic meningitis with a 0-week lag; a 10 mm rise in rainfall was associated with an 8.0% (95% CI: 7.2%-8.8%) increase in aseptic meningitis with a 7-week lag; and a 1 mJ/m² increase of solar radiation was associated with a 5.8% (95% CI: 3.0%-8.7%) increase in aseptic meningitis with a 10-week lag. Nino3 showed positive effects in all lags, and its one unit increase was associated with an 18.9% (95% CI: 15.3%-22.6%) increase of aseptic meningitis at lag 9. The variability in the relationship between climate factors and aseptic meningitis could be used to initiate preventive measures for climate determinants of aseptic meningitis.
authors.affiliation: Department of Social and Preventive Medicine, Sungkyunkwan University School of Medicine, 2066 Seobu-ro, Jangan-gu, Suwon, Gyeonggi-do 16419, Korea. yadavjoshi@gmail.com.
authors.forename: Yadav Prasad
authors.initials: YP
authors.lastname: Joshi
authors.affiliation: Department of Social and Preventive Medicine, Sungkyunkwan University School of Medicine, 2066 Seobu-ro, Jangan-gu, Suwon, Gyeonggi-do 16419, Korea. dodendlqtnf@gmail.com.
authors.forename: Eun-Hye
authors.initials: EH
authors.lastname: Kim
authors.affiliation: Department of Social and Preventive Medicine, Sungkyunkwan University School of Medicine, 2066 Seobu-ro, Jangan-gu, Suwon, Gyeonggi-do 16419, Korea. kimjh32@skku.edu.
authors.forename: Jong-Hun
authors.initials: JH
authors.lastname: Kim
authors.affiliation: Department of Biostatistics and Epidemiology, Graduate School of Public Health, and Institute of Public Health and Environment, Seoul National University, 1 Gwanak-ro, Gwanak-gu, Seoul 08826, Korea. hokim@snu.ac.kr.
authors.forename: Ho
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Kim
authors.affiliation: Department of Social and Preventive Medicine, Sungkyunkwan University School of Medicine, 2066 Seobu-ro, Jangan-gu, Suwon, Gyeonggi-do 16419, Korea. hkcheong@skku.edu.
authors.forename: Hae-Kwan
authors.initials: HK
authors.lastname: Cheong
mesh_terms: D002980:Climate; D004769:Enterovirus Infections / Q000453:epidemiology; D006801:Humans; D016014:Linear Models; D008582:Meningitis, Aseptic / Q000453:epidemiology*; D008962:Models, Theoretical; D056910:Republic of Korea / Q000453:epidemiology; D013696:Temperature; D014887:Weather
keywords: Enterovirus; climate; quasi-Poisson models; sea surface temperature; seasonality