The effects of ambient temperature on cardiovascular hospitalizations in suburban farmers of three cities in Gansu Province of China: A time-series study

This study aimed to evaluate the effects of temperature on CVD hospitalizations in suburban farmers of Zhangye, Wuwei, and Longnan with different climatic zones in Gansu Province, China. We obtained daily CVD hospitalization data for the three cities from the medical records of inpatients with the New Rural Cooperative Medical Scheme from the period January 1, 2018 to December 31, 2019. Generalized additive model based on Quasi-Poisson distribution and distributed lag nonlinear model were used to evaluate the effects of temperature on CVD hospitalizations, with analyses stratified by gender and age (adults: <65 years; the elderly:>= 65 years). The effect of minimum-morbidity temperature was used as the reference value to calculate estimates. M-shaped exposure-response curves were observed between temperature and CVD hospitalizations in the three cities. There are some differences in the susceptible populations of temperature in different regions, gender and age. This study showed that both low and high temperatures could increase the relative risks for CVD hospitalizations in the three cities. High temperatures have more significant and long-lasting effects than low temperatures.