Physiological Equivalent Temperature (PET) index and cardiovascular hospital admissions in Ahvaz, southwest of Iran

Abstract

Evidence shows that climate change may have adverse effects on human health. The purpose of this study was to investigate the relation between Physiologically Equivalent Temperature (PET) and cardiovascular hospital admissions in Ahvaz. Distributed Lag Non-linear Models (DLNM) combined with quasi-Poisson regression models were used to investigate the effect of PET on hospital admissions. Low PET values (6.4 °C, 9.9 °C and 16.9 °C) in all lags, except lag 0-30, significantly decreased the risk of hospital admissions for total cardiovascular diseases, hypertension, ischemic heart diseases, and cardiovascular admissions in men, women and ≤65 years. But, low PET (6.4 °C) in lags 0 and 0-2 significantly increased the risk of hospital admissions for cerebrovascular diseases; and high PET values increased the risk of ischemic heart diseases and in men. Both cold and hot stress are involved in cardiovascular hospital admissions.

Keywords:

• Cardiovascular diseases
• cardiovascular hospital admissions
• exposure assessment
• epidemiology
• hypertension
• Physiologically Equivalent Temperature
• temperature
• thermal stress

Acknowledgement

The authors wish to express their gratitude to Ms. Yalda Sabaghan for her kind assistance.

Competing interests

The authors declare that they have no competing interests.

Ethics approval and consent to participate

The proposal of this study was approved by the Ethics Committee of Ahvaz Jundishapur University of Medical Sciences (IR.AJUMS.REC.1399.866).

Consent for publication

Not applicable

Availability of data and materials

Not applicable

Additional information

Funding

This study was funded and supported by Ahvaz Jundishapur University of Medical Sciences, Grant No: APRD-9913.