Apples for Health- Hotter summer days, more hospitalizations

Hotter summer days, more hospitalizations

ROME, Feb. 20 (UPI) -- High summer temperatures pushed higher by climate change may bring a spike in hospitalizations for respiratory problems, a European study suggests.

The analysis of data from 12 European cities comes from a multicenter, three-year collaboration among epidemiologists, meteorologists and experts in public health collaboration that investigated the short-term effects of weather in Europe.

The project evaluated the effects of higher temperatures on hospitalizations for a number of different conditions in Europe.

The study, published in March's American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine, found that for every one-degree increase over a temperature threshold, there was a 4 percent average increase in respiratory-related hospitalizations, but not for cardiovascular or neurovascular-related problems.

"The project represents the first attempt to evaluate the effect of temperature on several morbidity outcomes using a standardized methodology in a multicenter European study," Paola Michelozzi of the Local Health Authority in Rome said in a statement.

Each city tracked in the study provided data for a minimum of three years between 1990 and 2001 on hospital admissions, meteorological and air pollution data. Researchers computed a "maximum apparent temperature" using an index that accounted for both air temperature and humidity.

In most cities, for each degree increase over 90 percent of the maximum apparent temperature, respiratory disease-related hospital admissions increased for all ages -- especially for those age 75 and over.