Projects

Foehn winds are intense warm winds, common in mountain regions, but their health impacts and potential to exacerbate existing heat-related risks remain poorly understood. We investigated the independent and combined association of foehn winds and temperature with cause-specific emergency hospitalizations in Switzerland. We found that foehn winds daily intensity showed small and no consistent association with hospitalizations in temperature-adjusted and non-adjusted models. However, foehn winds amplified heat-related hospitalization risk with a 14% increase in risk at the 99th temperature percentile on foehn days, compared to -2% on non-foehn days (Figure below). The association was larger for females, older adults, and for hospitalizations due to respiratory and mental health causes. While foehn winds did not directly impact hospitalizations, they may contribute to an amplification of heat-related health risks, especially for females and older adults.

(a) Cumulative relative risk for all-cause hospitalization from temperature exposure with 95% confidence intervals and (b) cumulative relative risk for all-cause hospitalization from temperature exposure with 95% confidence intervals on foehn and non-foehn days.

Over the past decade, research into the health effects of air pollution has grown rapidly, with increasing evidence linking air pollutants to a range of acute and chronic health outcomes. Short-term exposure to PM10 (particulate matter with aerodynamic diameters ≤ 10 μm) has been consistently associated with increases in emergency department visits and hospitalisations, particularly for respiratory and cardiovascular diseases. Applying a time series analysis using distributed lagged non-linear models, we found that PM10 exposure increases the risk for an emergency room visit in Basel, Switzerland (Figure below). This risk decreases when taking temperature as a confounder into account. The presence of heat further exacerbated this risk, with specific vulnerabilities in males and older individuals, as well as cardiovascular cause emergency room visits.

Exposure response for PM10 for all cause emergency room visits from Model 1 (no temperature confounding) and Model 2 (with temperature confounding).

text about freddy and nice 3x2 plot of character danger and differneces

Exposure response for PM10 for all cause emergency room visits from Model 1 (no temperature confounding) and Model 2 (with temperature confounding).

text about tuuli and nice 2x2 plot of different scenarios

Exposure response for PM10 for all cause emergency room visits from Model 1 (no temperature confounding) and Model 2 (with temperature confounding).

text about precipitation and nice 3x2 plot of different indices and water balance

Exposure response for PM10 for all cause emergency room visits from Model 1 (no temperature confounding) and Model 2 (with temperature confounding).