Long-term air pollution levels modify the relationships between short-term exposure to meteorological factors, air pollution and the incidence of hand, foot and mouth disease in children: a DLNM-based multicity time series study in Sichuan Province, China

BACKGROUND: Epidemiological studies have investigated the short-term effects of meteorological factors and air pollution on the incidence of hand, foot, and mouth disease (HFMD). Several meteorological indicators, such as relative humidity and the diurnal temperature range (DTR), significantly modify the relationship between short-term exposure to temperature and HFMD incidence. However, it remains unclear whether (and how) long-term air pollution levels modify the short-term relationships of HFMD incidence with meteorological factors and air pollution. METHODS: We obtained daily data on meteorological factors, air pollutants, and HFMD counts in children from 21 prefecture-level cities in Sichuan Province in Southwest China from 2015 to 2017. First, we constructed a distributed lag nonlinear model (DLNM) at each prefecture-level site to evaluate the short-term impacts of meteorological variables and air pollutants on HFMD incidence. Then, we assessed the pooled effects of the exposures and incorporated long-term city-specific air pollutant indicators as meta-predictors to examine their potential modification effects by performing multivariate meta-regression models. RESULTS: We found that long-term SO(2) and CO concentrations significantly modified the short-term relationships between climatic variables and HFMD incidence. Specifically, high concentrations of CO (P = 0.027) and SO(2) (P = 0.039) reduced the risk of HFMD at low temperatures. The relationship between relative humidity and HFMD incidence was weakened at high SO(2) concentrations (P = 0.024), especially when the relative humidity was below the median level. When the minimum relative humidity (32%) was compared to the median relative humidity (77%), the risk ratio (RR) was 0.77 (95% CI: 0.51–1.17) in the 90(th) percentile of SO(2) (19.6 μg/m(3)) and 0.41 (95% CI: 0.27–0.64) in the 10(th) percentile of SO(2) (10.6 μg/m(3)). CONCLUSION: Our results indicated that long-term SO(2) and CO levels modified the short-term associations between HFMD incidence in children and meteorological variables. These findings may inform health authorities to optimize targeted public health policies including reducing ambient air pollution and reinforcing self-protective actions to weaken the adverse health impacts of environmental factors on HFMD incidence. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s12889-022-13890-7.