Assessing the effect of meteorological factors on daily children’s respiratory disease hospitalizations: a retrospective study

Background Some previous studies have examined the effects of temperature, humidity, wind speed and atmospheric pressure on children morbidity, but few studies have evaluated health effects of combined effect of various meteorological factors. The purpose of this study was to assess the effect of daily changes in meteorological factors and their comprehensive effects on children’s respiratory disease hospitalizations for different ages, genders and subtypes in Baotou, China. Methods Generalized additive models and distributed lag non-linear models were constructed to simultaneously assess the exposure–response associations between daily admission counts of children with respiratory diseases and daily net effective temperature and other meteorological factors as well as their lag dependencies. Results In general, the cumulative meteorological factors had greater effects on lower respiratory tract infections than upper respiratory tract infections (RR: temperature [4.2 vs. 2.7]; wind speed [3.1 vs. 2.5]; humidity [1.8 vs. 1.3]). The effects on children over 3 years old were greater than those on children aged 0–3 years (OR: temperature [4.4 vs. 1.3]; wind speed [4.4 vs. 1.5]), while the effects on female children were greater than those on male children (OR: temperature [2.6 vs. 1.8]; wind speed [3.3 vs. 1.6]). However, some differences were observed between groups with regard to the effect of humidity. Hence, the net effective temperature was calculated using comprehensive meteorological factors, and the influence range value and peak value of each group were determined. Conclusions The influence of meteorological factors on children’s respiratory disease hospitalizations shows different characteristics in different subgroups. Hence, the net effective temperature was calculated using the comprehensive meteorological factors, and the influence range and peak value of each group were determined so as to recommend the corresponding measures accordingly.