Daily Temperature and Bacillary Dysentery: Estimated Effects, Attributable Risks, and Future Disease Burden in 316 Chinese Cities

Background: Bacillary dysentery (BD) remains a significant public health issue, especially in developing countries. Evidence assessing the risk of BD from temperature is limited, particularly from national studies including multiple locations with different climatic characteristics.

Objectives: We estimated the effect of temperature on BD across China, assessed heterogeneity and attributable risks across cities and regions, and projected the future risk of BD under climate change.

Methods: Daily BD surveillance and meteorological data over 2014-2016 were collected from the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention and the China Meteorology Administration, respectively. A two-stage statistical model was used to estimate city-specific temperature-BD relationships that were pooled to derive regional and national estimates. The risk of BD attributable to temperature was estimated, and the future burden of BD attributable to temperature was projected under different climate change scenarios.

Results: A positive linear relationship for the pooled effect was estimated at the national level. Subgroup analyses indicate that the estimated effect of temperature on BD was similar by age ( or ) and gender. At baseline, estimated attributable risks for BD due to average daily mean temperatures above the 50th percentile were highest for the Inner Mongolia (16%), Northeast China (14%), and Northern China (13%). Most of the individual cities in the same regions and most of the cities in the Northwest, Southern, and Southwest regions, had high attributable risks (). The Northern, Northeast, Inner Mongolia, Northwest, and Southern China regions were identified as high risk for future BD, with estimated increases by the 2090s compared with baseline of 20% (95% confidence interval: 11%, 27%), 15% (6%, 20%), 15% (, 22%), 12% (1%, 19%), and 11% (5%, 15%), respectively, under Representative Concentration Pathway 8.5.

Conclusions: The positive association between temperature and BD in different climatic regions of China, and the projection for increased risk due to climate change, support efforts to mitigate future risks. https://doi.org/10.1289/EHP5779.