Relationship between temperature and stroke incidence in Shenzhen

Objective To explore the relationship between temperature and stroke incidence in Shenzhen city.Methods When long time trend,season and relative humidity were under control,the relationship between temperature and incidence rate of stroke was explored by generalized additive model(GAM)for the whole population and stratified by sex and age from 2003.1 to 2005.12.Results The number of stroke was 15 434,mean value of weekly number of stroke was(99.00±29.56),mean value of it was(59.52±17.93)in male,and(39.42±13.86)in female from 2003 to 2005 in Shenzhen.Mean value of weekly number of stroke was(54.18±18.00)in less than 65 years old,and(44.76±13.72)in over 65 years old.When those factors were under control,low temperature appeared to be a risk factor to stroke incidence.The incidence of stroke increased along with the decrease of temperature.Stratified by sex and age,it was found that the incidence of stroke increased along with the decrease of temperature in female as well as patients less than 65 years old,but not in male.Conclusion The incidence of stroke was linearly correlated with temperature,the relative risk of the incidence of stroke increased along with the decrease of temperature.GAM can be effectively used to explore the association of temperature with diseases incapable of being fitted by parameter model.