ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Public Health
Sec. Infectious Diseases: Epidemiology and Prevention
Volume 13 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fpubh.2025.1656111
This article is part of the Research TopicMathematical Modelling and Data Analysis in Infectious DiseasesView all articles
Impact of meteorological factors on influenza incidence in Wuxi from 2014 to 2019: a time series and comprehensive analysis
Provisionally accepted
- 1Wuxi Center for Disease Control and Prevention, Wuxi, China
- 2Nanjing Medical University School of Public Health, Nanjing, China
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Background: Although the association between meteorological factors and influenza was numerously documented, the results are inconsistent, requiring a meta-analysis for synthesis. A recent analysis of the association between influenza and meteorological factors was conducted in Wuxi, China.Methods: Meteorological data and laboratory-confirmed influenza cases from 2014 to 2019 were collected in Wuxi. The exposure-response relationship was analyzed using a generalized additive model. Then we performed subgroup analysis based on age and gender. Finally, meta-analysis was utilized to aggregate the total influence of meteorological factors on influenza.Results: A total of 5,306 influenza cases were reported. Seven influenza peaks, observed every winter to spring and only one summer (2015), were noted. For a unit increase in weekly average pressure, temperature, wind speed, relative humidity, precipitation, and sunshine duration, the risk of influenza increased by 7.37%, decreased by 8.39%, decreased by 33.83%, increased by 6.44% when relative humidity was >68.86%, increased by 19.91% when precipitation was ≤ 6.13mm, and decreased by 11.41% when sunshine duration was ≤ 6.30h, respectively. No significant gender differences were observed. The impacts of air pressure, temperature, precipitation, and sunshine duration on children aged 3-14 were greater than on other age groups. Compared with the metaanalysis, the pooled effect of ambient temperature was consistent. In subgroup and meta-regression analysis, significant differences were found in the children group.This study provides further insight into the effects of meteorological factors on influenza incidence, especially the impact on children, helping enhance the level of influenza monitoring and early warning research.
Keywords: influenza, Meteorological factors, Generalized additive model, Time series study, Meta-analysis
Received: 29 Jun 2025; Accepted: 28 Jul 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Shi, He, Wang, Ding and Gao. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Chao Shi, Wuxi Center for Disease Control and Prevention, Wuxi, China
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