Long-term temperature variability and the incidence of cardiovascular diseases: A large, representative cohort study in China

Abstract

In the context of global climate change, far less is known about the impact of long-term temperature variability (TV), especially in developing countries. The current study aimed to estimate the effect of long-term TV on the incidence of cardiovascular disease (CVD) in China. A total of 23,721 individuals with a mean age of 56.15 years were enrolled at baseline from 2012 to 2016 and followed up during 2017-2019. TV was defined as the standard deviation of daily temperatures during survey years and was categorized into tertiles (lowest≤ 8.78 °C, middle = 8.78-10.07 °C, highest ≥ 10.07 °C). The Cox proportional hazards regression was used to estimate the multivariable-adjusted hazard ratio (HR) between TV and CVD. During the median follow-up of 4.65 years, we ascertained 836 cases of incident CVD. For per 1 °C increase in TV, there was a 6% increase of CVD (HR = 1.06 [95% confidence interval (CI): 1.01-1.11]). A significant positive trend was observed between CVD risk and increasing levels of TV compared to the lowest tertile [HR = 1.34 (95% CI: 1.13-1.59) for the medium tertile, HR = 1.72 (95% CI: 1.35-2.19) for the highest tertile, P_trend < 0.001]. Exposure to high TV would lose 2.11 disease-free years for the population aged 35-65 years and 66 CVD cases (or 7.95% cases) could been attributable to TV higher than 8.11 °C in the current study. The current findings suggested that long-term TV was associated with a higher risk of CVD incidence, it is needed to reduce the TV-related adverse health effect.

Keywords: Cardiovascular diseases; Cohort studies; Environment exposure; Incidence; Temperature.