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National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences

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Your Environment. Your Health.

Publication Detail

Title: Warmer Weather and the Risk of Urinary Tract Infections in Women.

Authors: Simmering, Jacob E; Polgreen, Linnea A; Cavanaugh, Joseph E; Erickson, Bradley A; Suneja, Manish; Polgreen, Philip M

Published In J Urol, (2021 02)

Abstract: PURPOSE: The incidence of urinary tract infections is seasonal, peaking in summer months. One possible mechanism for the observed seasonality of urinary tract infections is warmer weather. MATERIALS AND METHODS: We identified all urinary tract infection cases located in approximately 400 metropolitan statistical areas in the contiguous United States between 2001 and 2015 using the Truven Health MarketScan® databases. A total of 167,078,882 person-years were included in this data set and a total of 15,876,030 urinary tract infection events were identified by ICD-9 code 599.0. Weather data for each metropolitan statistical area and date were obtained from the National Centers for Environmental Information. We computed the mean temperature during the period 0 to 7 days prior to the urinary tract infection diagnosis. We used a quasi-Poisson generalized linear model. The primary outcome was the number of urinary tract infections each day in a metropolitan statistical area in each age group. Covariates considered included age group, day of week, year and the temperature during the previous 7 days. RESULTS: Warmer weather increases the risk of urinary tract infections among women treated in outpatient settings in a dose-response fashion. On days when the prior week's average temperature was between 25 and 30C, the incidence of urinary tract infections was increased by 20% to 30% relative to when the prior week's temperature was 5 to 7.5C. CONCLUSIONS: The incidence of urinary tract infections increases with the prior week's temperature. Our results indicate that warmer weather is a risk factor for urinary tract infections. Furthermore, as temperatures rise, the morbidity attributable to urinary tract infections may increase.

PubMed ID: 32945727 Exiting the NIEHS site

MeSH Terms: Adolescent; Adult; Aged; Aged, 80 and over; Female; Humans; Incidence; Middle Aged; Risk Factors; Seasons*; Temperature*; United States; Urinary Tract Infections/epidemiology*; Young Adult

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