Role of temperature in reported chickenpox cases in northern European countries: Denmark and Finland.

OBJECTIVE

In this study, we sought to explore the temperature-dependent transition of patterns of reported chickenpox cases in the northern European countries of Denmark and Finland to help determine the potential relationship with epidemiological factors of the disease. We performed time-series analysis consisting of a spectral analysis based on the maximum entropy method in the frequency domain and the nonlinear least squares method in the time domain, using the following time-series data: monthly data of reported chickenpox cases and mean temperatures in the pre-vaccination era for Denmark and Finland. The results were compared with those reported for China and Japan in our previous studies.

RESULTS

Time-series data of chickenpox cases for both Denmark and Finland showed a peak each winter, resulting in a unimodal cycle. For investigating the origin of the unimodal cycle, we set the contribution ratio of the 1-year cycle, Q1, as the contribution of the amplitude of a 1-year cycle, to the entire amplitude of the time-series data. The Q1 values for both countries clearly showed a positive correlation with the annual mean temperature of each country. The mean temperature substantially influenced the incidence of chickenpox in both countries.