Association between temperature and air pollutants with atrial fibrillation presentations to emergency departments
Abstract
INTRODUCTION: Understanding the impact of environmental exposures on disease incidence is important for environmental guidelines, health services management, and advising patients. We aimed to assess the relationship between daily mean temperature and common pollutants with atrial fibrillation (AF) presentations to emergency departments (EDs).
METHODS: The study included consecutive adult patients presenting with AF to EDs from 1/1/2014 to 31/12/2020 with linkage to hospital and emergency discharge diagnosis data. A time series quasi-Poisson regression with a distributed lag nonlinear model was fitted to assess the association between AF with mean air temperature and five common pollutants, overall and according to sex and region, with adjustment for season, day of the week, long-term trend, and co-pollutants.
RESULTS: In 82 575 AF presentations to EDs during the study period, mean (standard deviations [SD]) (SD) age was 69.6 (SD 14.7) years and 50.7% were female. AF presentations were associated with elevated levels of Particulate Matter (PM) 2.5 (≥57.7 µg/m3) and nitrous dioxide (NO2) (≥16.5 parts per billion), but not mean air temperature or other pollutants (carbon monoxide, sulphur dioxide, or ozone). The attributable fraction of AF presentations relating to above optimal NO2 and PM 2.5 levels was 7.24% and 3.81% resulting in 854 and 450 annual excess AF presentations, respectively.
CONCLUSIONS: High levels of NO2 and PM 2.5 are associated with increased risk of AF…
How strong is the evidence?
Evidence Hub reads this as a cohort study, done in people. Its evidence level is 3 of 5 (Moderate · trial / cohort / secondary analysis). Trials without a large randomized design, cohorts and secondary analyses give moderate evidence.
Read the paper
Related studies
- The Matrisome: In Silico Definition and In Vivo Characterization by Proteomics of Normal and Tumor Extracellular Matrices
- The Escherichia coli MG1655 in silico metabolic genotype: Its definition, characteristics, and capabilities
- In silico pharmacology for drug discovery: methods for virtual ligand screening and profiling
- In silico prediction of splice-altering single nucleotide variants in the human genome
- In silico clinical trials: how computer simulation will transform the biomedical industry
- In silico optimization of a guava antimicrobial peptide enables combinatorial exploration for peptide design
Go deeper in Evidence Hub
Evidence Hub adds a study data sheet (design, sample size, evidence level, key numbers), an AI summary and a chat grounded in the paper's text.