Deleterious effect of cold on overall mortality is well-established. We studied associations between the air temperature and the number f ambulance calls for asthma in Nur-Sultan, Kazakhstan - the second coldest capital in the world. Daily counts of ambulance calls for asthma in Nur-Sultan for the cold seasons (October-March) 2006-2010 were obtained from the Municipal Ambulance Station. Associations between the number of calls and mean and minimum apparent temperatures (average for lags 0-15) were studied using first-order Poisson auto-regression models controlling for wind speed and effects of month, year, weekends and holidays. Altogether, there were 7373 ambulance calls for asthma during the study period. An inverse association between minimum apparent temperature and the number of calls was observed for the age-group 60 years and older. A decrease of the minimum apparent temperature by 1°C was associated with an increase in the number of calls by 1.7% (95% CI: 0.1%-3.3%) across the whole temperature spectrum. No associations in other age groups were found. Our results suggest an inverse association between the average 15-day lag minimum apparent temperature and the number of ambulance calls during the cold season in Nur-Sultan, but this is limited to the oldest age-group.
Keywords: Asthma; Kazakhstan; ambulance calls; apparent temperature; central Asia; cold; continental climate.