Meteorological Factors and Infectious Diarrhea in Hangzhou:a Time-series Study

Objectives  To assess the association between meteorological factors and the incidence of infectious diarrhea in Hangzhou.

Methods  A generalized additive modeling was used to analyze the data of meteorological factors and the number of infectious diarrhea patients occurred in May 1 to Oct 31 in 2006-2008.Under the control of time-related long-term and seasonal trends and confounding factors, the effect of meteorological factors were analyzed, such as the air temperature, air pressure, humidity, cloud cover, precipitates, visibility, wind speed, and surface temperature at the time while the infectious diarrhea cases occurred.

Results  The association between the highest air temperature, humidity, air pressure, wind speed and 40 cm surface temperature with the occurrence of infectious diarrhea cases was statistically significant.

Conclusions  Meteorological factors including air temperature, humidity, air pressure, wind speed, and surface temperature might affect the occurrence of infectious diarrhea cases.