Seasonal Distribution and Meteorological Factors Associated with Hand, Foot, and Mouth Disease among Children in Xi'an, Northwestern China.

Seasonal Distribution and Meteorological Factors Associated with Hand, Foot, and Mouth Disease among Children in Xi'an, Northwestern China. Am J Trop Med Hyg. 2020 Mar 09;: Authors: Guo T, Liu J, Chen J, Bai Y, Long Y, Chen B, Song S, Shao Z, Liu K Abstract Hand, foot, and mouth disease (HFMD) is a common infectious disease in the Asia-Pacific region that primarily affects children younger than 5 years. Previous studies have confirmed that the seasonal transmission of this disease is strongly related to meteorological factors, but the results are not consistent. In addition, the associations between weather conditions and HFMD in northwestern China have not been investigated. Therefore, we aimed to examine this issue in Xi'an, the largest city of northwestern China that has been suffering from serious HFMD epidemics. In the current study, data for HFMD and six meteorological factors were collected from 2009 to 2018. Using cross-correlation analysis, the Granger causality test, and the distributed lag nonlinear model, we estimated the quantitative relationships and exposure-lag-response effects between weekly meteorological factors and HFMD incidence among children. We found that the seasonal distribution of HFMD in Xi'an has two peaks each year and is significantly impacted by the weekly temperature, precipitation, and evaporation over an 8-week period. Higher values of temperature and evaporation had positive associations with disea...
Source: Am J Trop Med Hyg - Category: Infectious Diseases Authors: Tags: Am J Trop Med Hyg Source Type: research