Lagging effects and prediction of pollutants and their interaction modifiers on influenza in northeastern China

Abstract

Background: Previous studies have typically explored the daily lagged relations between influenza and meteorology, but few have explored seasonally the monthly lagged relationship, interaction and multiple prediction between influenza and pollution. Our specific objectives are to evaluate the lagged and interaction effects of pollution factors and construct models for estimating influenza incidence in a hierarchical manner.

Methods: Our researchers collect influenza case data from 2005 to 2018 with meteorological and contaminative factors in Northeast China. We develop a generalized additive model with up to 6 months of maximum lag to analyze the impact of pollution factors on influenza cases and their interaction effects. We employ LASSO regression to identify the most significant environmental factors and conduct multiple complex regression analysis. In addition, quantile regression is taken to model the relation between influenza morbidity and specific percentiles (or quantiles) of meteorological factors.

Results: The influenza epidemic in Northeast China has shown an upward trend year by year. The excessive incidence of influenza in Northeast China may be attributed to the suspected primary air pollutant, NO₂, which has been observed to have overall low levels during January, March, and June. The Age 15-24 group shows an increase in the relative risk of influenza with an increase in PM_2.5 concentration, with a lag of 0-6 months (ERR 1.08, 95% CI 0.10-2.07). In the quantitative analysis of the interaction model, PM₁₀ at the level of 100-120 μg/m³, PM_2.5 at the level of 60-80 μg/m³, and NO₂ at the level of 60 μg/m³ or more have the greatest effect on the onset of influenza. The GPR model behaves better among prediction models.

Conclusions: Exposure to the air pollutant NO₂ is associated with an increased risk of influenza with a cumulative lag effect. Prioritizing winter and spring pollution monitoring and influenza prediction modeling should be our focus.

Keywords: Generalized additive model; Influenza; NO2; Pollutants; Time series analysis.