Influencia de los factores meteorológicos en las enfermedades durante la infancia

Introduction A large number of typical childhood diseases have an epidemic incidence with ups and downs in the number of cases that are repeated year after year during the same seasons. This coincidence between disease and seasonality has led to the notion of an association between disease and meteorological factors. In recent years, interest has grown in determining which meteorological factors and to what extent they are associated with different health disorders, especially infectious and allergic diseases. Unfortunately, many of the existing studies have failed to obtain disease models that allow explaining and adequately predicting the disease-climate association. RSV bronchiolitis, asthma exacerbations, IgE-mediated respiratory allergy, rotavirus gastroenteritis, S. pyogenes pharyngitis and chickenpox are all very characteristic diseases of childhood with a seasonal epidemic pattern that suggests a strong association with weather factors. Research content The incidence of these diseases on the island of Mallorca has been used to study the influence of meteorological factors. The incidence of the diseases was determined measuring the weekly and monthly mean hospital admissions (rotavirus, RSV), hospital emergencies (S. pyogenes, asthma), notifications of the network of sentinel doctors (chickenpox) and the average specific IgE values of the immunology reference laboratory (IgE D. pteronyssinus). The meteorological factors were obtained from the Spanish Meteorological Agency from the data collected by the station located in Son San Joan. The school period factor was used to measure the influence of social interactions on the incidence of diseases. To obtain the degree of association and build predictive models, multivariate regression analysis and time series statistical analysis techniques have been performed. RSV bronchiolitis was associated with temperature and weekly mean atmospheric pressure. The peak activity of RSV bronchiolitis was maximum with average temperatures of 9oC and atmospheric pressures of 1032hPA. Asthmatic exacerbations were associated with the values of temperature, water vapor pressure, relative humidity and wind speed. IgE levels to D. pteronyssinus were associated with relative humidity and inversely with solar radiation. Rotavirus hospitalizations were positively associated with atmospheric pressure, solar radiation and wind speed and negatively with temperature. Temperature and solar radiation were the most influential factors with hospitalization peaks due to rotavirus at 9oC and 800 10KJ/m2, respectively. The number of cases of chickenpox was associated with the decrease in the mean levels of water vapor pressure and with the increase in solar radiation during the previous 3 and 4 weeks, respectively. The number of cases of streptococcal pharyngitis increased with the decrease in temperature and with the increase in solar radiation levels during the previous week. Multiple regression models were able to explain the variability of 88% of cases of RSV bronchiolitis, 98.4% of asthma exacerbations, 93% of IgE values to D. pteronyssinus and 82% of hospitalizations due to rotavirus. ARMAX models were able to predict 95% of chickenpox cases and 68% of streptococcal pharyngitis cases. In the case of asthmatic exacerbations, chickenpox and streptococcal pharyngitis, the schooling factor was an independent factor associated with its incidence. Conclusions The seasonality of all the diseases studied was associated with meteorological factors. The type and degree of influence of meteorological factors differed depending on the type of disease. The created models based on multivariate regression and ARMAX analyses have an adequate predictive capacity of the variations in the incidence of the studied diseases all of which are typical of childhood.