Volume 12 Issue 2

Evaluating the Effect of Climate on Viral Respiratory Diseases Among Children Using AI

Mikhail I. Krivonosov,Ekaterina Pazukhina,Alexey Zaikin,Francesca Viozzi,Ilaria Lazzareschi,Lavinia Manca,Annamaria Caci,Rosaria Santangelo,Maurizio Sanguinetti,Francesca Raffaelli,Barbara Fiori,Giuseppe Zampino,Piero Valentini,Daniel Munblit,Oleg Blyuss andDanilo Buonsenso

1Research Center in Artificial Intelligence, Lobachevsky State University, 603022 Nizhny Novgorod, Russia
2Wolfson Institute of Population Health, Queen Mary University of London, London EC1M 6BQ, UK
3Institute for Cognitive Neuroscience, University Higher School of Economics, 109028 Moscow, Russia
4Department of Mathematics and Women’s Cancer, University College London, London WC1E 6BT, UK
5Medicine and Surgery, Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, 00168 Rome, Italy
6Department of Woman and Child Health, Fondazione Policlinico Universitario A. Gemelli IRCCS, 00168 Rome, Italy
7Dipartimento di Scienze di Laboratorio e Infettivologiche, Fondazione Policlinico Universitario A. Gemelli IRCCS, 00168 Rome, Italy
8Dipartimento di Scienze Biotecnologiche di Base, Cliniche Intensivologiche e Perioperatorie-Sezione di Microbiologia, Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, 00168 Rome, Italy
9Care for Long Term Conditions Division, Florence Nightingale Faculty of Nursing, Midwifery and Palliative Care, King’s College London, London SE1 8WA, UK
10Department of Paediatrics and Paediatric Infectious Diseases, Institute of Child’s Health, Sechenov First Moscow State Medical University (Sechenov University), 119991 Moscow, Russia
 
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These authors contributed equally to this work.

Abstract

Background: Respiratory viral infections (RVIs) exhibit seasonal patterns influenced by biological, ecological, and climatic factors. Weather variables such as temperature, humidity, and wind impact the transmission of droplet-borne viruses, potentially affecting disease severity. However, the role of climate in predicting complications in pediatric RVIs remains unclear, particularly in the context of climate-change-driven extreme weather events. Methods: This retrospective cohort study analyzed 1610 hospitalization records of children (0–18 years) with lower respiratory tract infections in Rome, Italy, between 2018 and 2023. Viral pathogens were identified using nasopharyngeal molecular testing, and weather data from the week preceding hospitalization were collected. Several machine learning models were tested, including logistic regression and random forest, comparing the baseline (demographic and clinical) models with those including climate variables. Results: Logistic regression showed a slight improvement in predicting severe RVIs with the inclusion of weather variables, with accuracy increasing from 0.785 to 0.793. Average temperature, dew point, and humidity emerged as significant contributors. Other algorithms did not demonstrate similar improvements. Conclusions: Climate variables can enhance logistic regression models’ ability to predict RVI severity, but their inconsistent impact across algorithms highlights challenges in integrating environmental data into clinical predictions. Further research is needed to refine these models for use in reliable healthcare applications.
Keywords: pediatric respiratory infectionsclimate variablesmachine learning predictions
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