Association between winter season and risk of death from cardiovascular diseases: a study in more than half a million inpatients in Beijing, China

BMC Cardiovascular Disorders

Lueping Zhao²  Guo-Pei Yu³  Jun Zhang⁶  Xiemin Ma⁴  Yi Li¹  Jing Wang¹  Jiong Li⁵  Xiaoyuan Bao¹  Guilan Kong¹  Naifang Su¹  Hui Liu¹  Beibei Xu¹ 

[1] Medical Informatics Center, Peking University, 38 Xueyuan Rd, Haidian District, 100191, Beijing, China;Division of Public Health Sciences, Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, Seattle, WA, USA;New York Medicine College, Valhalla, NY, USA;Department of Hospital Management, School of Public Health, Peking University, Beijing, China;Section for Epidemiology, Department of Public health, Aarhus University, Aarhus, Denmark;Department of Hospital Administration of Peking University Health Science Center, Peking University, Beijing, China

关键词: Asian population;    Mortality;    Older adults;    Seasonality;    Winter;    Cardiovascular disease;   

Others  :  856733
DOI  :  10.1186/1471-2261-13-93

 received in 2012-12-26, accepted in 2013-10-28,  发布年份 2013

【 摘 要 】

Background

Seasonal associations of cardiovascular mortality have been noted in most populations of European origin years ago, but are not well evaluated in Asian populations recently.

Methods

Utilizing the electronic Hospitalization Summary Reports (HSRs) from 32 top-ranked hospitals in Beijing, China, we evaluated the association between winter season and the risk of cardiovascular death among hospitalized individuals. General additive models and logistic regression models were adjusted for confounding factors.

Results

Older patients who were admitted to the hospital in the winter months (January, February, November and December) had a death risk that was increased by approximately 30% to 50% (P < 0.01) over those who were admitted in May. However, younger patients did not seem to experience the same seasonal variations in death risk. The excess winter deaths among older patients were associated with ischemic heart disease (RR = 1.22; 95% CI 1.13 to 1.31), pulmonary heart disease (RR = 1.42; 95% CI 1.10 to 1.83), cardiac arrhythmias (RR = 1.67; 95% CI 1.36 to 2.05), heart failure (RR = 1.30; 95% CI 1.09 to 1.54), ischemic stroke (RR = 1.30; 95% CI 1.17 to 1.43), and other cerebrovascular diseases (RR = 1.78; 95% CI 1.40 to 2.25). The risks of mortality were higher in winter months than in the month of May, regardless of the presence or absence of respiratory disease.

Conclusions

Winter season was associated with a substantially increased risk of cardiovascular death among older Chinese cardiovascular inpatients.

【 授权许可】

   
2013 Xu et al.; licensee BioMed Central Ltd.

【 图 表 】

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