Abstract

Background Cardiovascular diseases are the number one cause of death globally and represent 31% of all global deaths. The aim of our study was to determine the influence of front effects on acute cardiovascular diseases (ACVDs).

Methods We obtained all ACVD admissions in a Central-European region, Hungary, Budapest. A time-series analysis was applied to 6499 morbidity cases during a five-year period (2009–2013). Poisson-regression model was used and adjusted for air temperature, pressure, humidity, wind velocity, their interactions and seasonality to assess the association of fronts and ACVDs.

Results There is a positive significant association between ACVDs and a cold front effect lagged by one day (p = 0.018) with a relative risk (RR) of 1.095 [95% CI (1.021,1.181)]. Our findings show that among patient subgroups with major cardiovascular risk factors (hypertension, diabetes, hyperlipidemia, history of CVDs) the patterns are similar, but occluded fronts also have a significant effect.