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It's Not the Heat, It's the Humidity: Wet Weather Increases Legionellosis Risk in the Greater Philadelphia Metropolitan Area
Journal article   Open access   Peer reviewed

It's Not the Heat, It's the Humidity: Wet Weather Increases Legionellosis Risk in the Greater Philadelphia Metropolitan Area

David N Fisman, Suet Lim, Gregory A Wellenius, Caroline Johnson, Phyllis Britz, Meredith Gaskins, John Maher, Murray A Mittleman, C Victor Spain, Charles N Haas, …
The Journal of infectious diseases, v 192(12), pp 2066-2073
15 Dec 2005
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1086/498248
PMID: 16288369
Featured in Collection :   UN Sustainable Development Goals @ Drexel
url
https://doi.org/10.1086/498248View
Published, Version of Record (VoR) Open

Abstract

Background Legionella species are abundant in the environment and are increasingly recognized as a cause of severe pneumonia. Increases in cases of community-acquired legionellosis in the greater Philadelphia metropolitan area (GPMA) led to concern that changing environmental factors could influence occurrence of disease MethodsWe evaluated the association between weather patterns and occurrence of legionellosis in the GPMA, using both traditional Poisson regression analysis and a case-crossover study approach. The latter approach controls for seasonal factors that could confound the relationship between weather and occurrence of disease and permits the identification of acute weather patterns associated with disease ResultsA total of 240 cases of legionellosis were reported between 1995 and 2003. Cases occurred with striking summertime seasonality. Occurrence of cases was associated with monthly average temperature (incidence rate ratio [IRR] per degree Celsius, 1.07 [95% confidence interval {CI}, 1.05-1.09]) and relative humidity (IRR per 1% increase in relative humidity, 1.09 [95% CI, 1.06-1.12]) by Poisson regression analysis. However, case-crossover analysis identified an acute association with precipitation (odds ratio [OR], 2.48 [95% CI, 1.30-3.12]) and increased humidity (OR per 1% increase in relative humidity, 1.08 [95% CI, 1.05-1.11]) 6-10 days before occurrence of cases. A significant dose-response relationship for occurrence of cases was seen with both precipitation and increased humidity ConclusionsAlthough, in the GPMA, legionellosis occurred predominantly during summertime, the acute occurrence of disease is best predicted by wet, humid weather. This finding is consistent with the current understanding of the ecological profile of this pathogen and supports the contention that sporadic legionellosis occurs through contamination of water sources

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161 citations in Web of Science
176 citations in Scopus

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UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

This publication has contributed to the advancement of the following goals:

#3 Good Health and Well-Being
#6 Clean Water and Sanitation

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Collaboration types
Domestic collaboration
Web of Science research areas
Immunology
Infectious Diseases
Microbiology
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