Weather and Health Symptoms

• Main Authors: Mihye Lee, Sachiko Ohde, Kevin Y. Urayama, Osamu Takahashi, Tsuguya Fukui
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: MDPI AG 2018-08-01
• Series: International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health
• Subjects: weather and physical symptoms; pain; joint pain; headache; cough; temperature; humidity; depressed mood
• Online Access: http://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/15/8/1670

Weather affects the daily lives of individuals. However, its health effects have not been fully elucidated. It may lead to physical symptoms and/or influence mental health. Thus, we evaluated the association between weather parameters and various ailments. We used daily reports on health symptoms from 4548 individuals followed for one month in October of 2013, randomly sampled from the entirety of Japan. Weather variables from the monitoring station located closest to the participants were used as weather exposure. Logistic mixed effects model with a random intercept for each individual was applied to evaluate the effect of temperature and humidity on physical symptoms. Stratified analyses were conducted to compare weather effects by sex and age group. The lag day effects were also assessed. Joint pain was associated with higher temperature (1.87%, 95% CI = 1.15 to 2.59) and humidity (1.38%, 95% CI = 0.78 to 2.00). Headaches was increased by 0.56% (95% CI = −0.55 to 1.77) per 1 °C increase in the maximum temperature and by 1.35% per 1 °C increase in dew point. Weather was associated with various physical symptoms. Women seem to be more sensitive to weather conditions in association with physical symptoms, especially higher humidity and lower temperature.