Identifying joint impacts of sun radiation, temperature, humidity, and rain duration on triggering mental disorders using a high-resolution weather monitoring system

Xinlei Deng; Jerald Brotzge; Melissa Tracy; Howard H Chang; Xiaobo Romeiko; Wangjian Zhang; Ian Ryan; Fangqun Yu; Yanji Qu; Gan Luo; Shao Lin

doi:10.1016/j.envint.2022.107411

Identifying joint impacts of sun radiation, temperature, humidity, and rain duration on triggering mental disorders using a high-resolution weather monitoring system

Environ Int. 2022 Sep:167:107411. doi: 10.1016/j.envint.2022.107411. Epub 2022 Jul 14.

Authors

Xinlei Deng¹, Jerald Brotzge², Melissa Tracy³, Howard H Chang⁴, Xiaobo Romeiko¹, Wangjian Zhang⁵, Ian Ryan¹, Fangqun Yu⁶, Yanji Qu⁷, Gan Luo⁶, Shao Lin⁸

Affiliations

¹ Department of Environmental Health Sciences, School of Public Health, University at Albany, the State University of New York, Rensselaer, NY, USA.
² Program Manager, New York State Mesonet, University at Albany, the State University of New York, Albany, NY, USA.
³ Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, School of Public Health, University at Albany, the State University of New York, Rensselaer, NY, USA.
⁴ Department of Biostatistics and Bioinformatics, Rollins School of Public Health, Emory University, Atlanta, GA, USA.
⁵ Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, School of Public Health, Sun Yat-Sen University, Guangzhou, Guangdong, China.
⁶ Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, Atmospheric Sciences Research Center, University at Albany, the State University of New York, Rensselaer, NY, USA.
⁷ Guangdong Cardiovascular Institute, Guangdong Provincial People's Hospital, Guangzhou, Guangdong, China.
⁸ Department of Environmental Health Sciences, School of Public Health, University at Albany, the State University of New York, Rensselaer, NY, USA; Department of Biostatistics and Bioinformatics, Rollins School of Public Health, Emory University, Atlanta, GA, USA. Electronic address: slin@albany.edu.

PMID: 35870379
DOI: 10.1016/j.envint.2022.107411

Abstract

Background: Mental disorders (MDs) are behavioral or mental patterns that cause significant distress or impairment of personal functioning. Previously, temperature has been linked to MDs, but most studies suffered from exposure misclassification due to limited monitoring sites. We aimed to assess whether multiple meteorological factors could jointly trigger MD-related emergency department (ED) visits in warm season, using a highly dense weather monitoring system.

Methods: We conducted a time-stratified, case-crossover study. MDs-related ED visits (primary diagnosis) from May-October 2017-2018 were obtained from New York State (NYS) discharge database. We obtained solar radiation (SR), relative humidity (RH), temperature, heat index (HI), and rainfall from Mesonet, a real-time monitoring system spaced about 17 miles (126 stations) across NYS. We used conditional logistic regression to assess the weather-MD associations.

Results: For each interquartile range (IQR) increase, both SR (excess risk (ER): 4.9%, 95% CI: 3.2-6.7%) and RH (ER: 4.0%, 95% CI: 2.6-5.4%) showed the largest risk for MD-related ED visits at lag 0-9 days. While temperature presented a short-term risk (highest ER at lag 0-2 days: 3.7%, 95% CI: 2.5-4.9%), HI increased risk over a two-week period (ER range: 3.7-4.5%), and rainfall hours showed an inverse association with MDs (ER: -0.5%, 95% CI: 0.9-(-0.1)%). Additionally, we observed stronger association of SR, RH, temperature, and HI in September and October. Combination of high SR, RH, and temperature displayed the largest increase in MDs (ER: 7.49%, 95% CI: 3.95-11.15%). The weather-MD association was stronger for psychoactive substance usage, mood disorders, adult behavior disorders, males, Hispanics, African Americans, individuals aged 46-65, or Medicare patients.

Conclusions: Hot and humid weather, especially the joint effect of high sun radiation, temperature and relative humidity showed the highest risk of MD diseases. We found stronger weather-MD associations in summer transitional months, males, and minority groups. These findings also need further confirmation.

Keywords: Emergency department; Heat index; Mental health; Relative humidity; Solar radiation; Temperature.

Publication types

Research Support, N.I.H., Extramural

MeSH terms

Adult
Aged
Cross-Over Studies
Humans
Humidity
Male
Medicare*
Mental Disorders* / epidemiology
Mental Disorders* / etiology
Rain
Seasons
Temperature
United States
Weather

Grants and funding

R15 ES028000/ES/NIEHS NIH HHS/United States