Precipitation and primary health care visits for gastrointestinal illness in Gothenburg, Sweden.

ABSTRACT: BACKGROUND:The river Göta Älv is a source of freshwater for the City of Gothenburg, Sweden, and we recently identified a clear influence of upstream precipitation on concentrations of indicator bacteria in the river water, as well as an association with the daily number of phone calls to the nurse advice line related to acute gastrointestinal illnesses (AGI calls). This study aimed to examine visits to primary health-care centers owing to similar symptoms (AGI visits) in the same area, to explore associations with precipitation, and to compare variability in AGI visits and AGI calls. METHODS:We obtained data covering six years (2007-2012) of daily AGI visits and studied their association with prior precipitation (0-28 days) using a distributed lag nonlinear Poisson regression model, adjust

SUBMITTER: Tornevi A 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4447281 | biostudies-literature | 2015

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature