Local weather is associated with rates of online searches for musculoskeletal pain symptoms.

ABSTRACT: Weather conditions are commonly believed to influence musculoskeletal pain, however the evidence for this is mixed. This study aimed to examine the relationship between local meteorological conditions and online search trends for terms related to knee pain, hip pain, and arthritis. Five years of relative online search volumes for these terms were obtained for the 50 most populous cities in the contiguous United States, along with corresponding local weather data for temperature, relative humidity, barometric pressure, and precipitation. Methods from the climate econometrics literature were used to assess the casual impact of these meteorological variables on the relative volumes of searches for pain. For temperatures between -5°C and 30°C, search volumes for hip pain increased by 12 index

SUBMITTER: Telfer S 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5549896 | biostudies-literature | 2017

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature