Relação entre fatores meteorológicos e internações por doenças respiratórias em crianças e adultos (≥ 50 ANOS) – SM – RS

Abstract

The influence of the climatic factors on the human life is quite wide under the environmental focus as well as under the health one. Due to its importance we tried to understand the way by which such influence occurs and the consequences that it generates to the human being. Thus, the present research had the purpose of relating some climatic factors with the weekly number of hospital internments by respiratory diseases in children aging below 1 year, from 1 to 4 years old and adults aging 50 years old or more. We have collected the data that were registered by the Epidemic Surveillance of the Municipal Secretary of Santa Maria, RS, such as the numbers of weekly internments of people belonging to the age groups mentioned above during the period from May 22, 2005 to August 25, 2007. The weekly averages of the meteorological factors like direction, burst and wind speed, minimum and maximum temperatures, maximum and minimum relative air humidity, solar radiation, maximum and minimum dew point and precipitation were obtained from the site of the National Meteorology Institute. Within the evaluated period there have been a minor number of children internments when compared to the adults and the number of weekly internments was lower than or similar to eight in 75% of the weeks with children internments and lower than or equal to thirteen for the adults. The number of children and adults weekly internments was observed to be higher in the winter and lower in the spring time. The average of the number of children and adults internments was of approximately 6 and 11, respectively. The meteorological factors presenting the highest correlation with the number of internments of children aging below 1 year old were the wind speed and the minimum dew point, while with the number of adults internments the factors were the wind direction and the minimum dew point. These variables remained in the adjusted regression models, though, for the number of interned children aging between 1 and 4 years old, no appropriate model has been found due to the lack of warranty of the basic presuppositions to the regression models.