Study on the Correlation between Weather and the Number of Patients for Hyperhidrosis with Large Scale Real World Data

Abstract

Hyperhidrosis is a condition that negatively affects a patient’s quality of lifeand work productivity due to sweating in excess of the amount needed to regulate body temperature. The global average temperature has been increasing in recent years. As sweating is affected by climate change, it has become increasingly meaningful to analyze the disease from a meteorological perspective. We conducted a preliminary investigation into the correlation between medical data on hyperhidrosis and meteorological data. (Method) We extracted medical information from claim data provided by the social health insurance program operated by JMDC Inc., as well as meteorological data from the Japan Weather Association. We investigated the distribution of the number of patients by time and region. We included a total of 1,037,269 patients with“excessive sweating”or other symptoms reported on claims between January 2015 and September 2022. The association between the number of patients and meteorological data was analyzed by univariate analysis. Furthermore, we calculated the timing of high prevalence of hyperhidrosis based on minimum temperature and perceived temperature for each year. (Result) Throughout the observation period, a cyclic pattern was observed, peaking in the summer months. Univariate analysis revealed that the meteorological data variables most correlated with the number of patients with hyperhidrosis in terms of coefcient of determination were minimum temperature and perceived temperature. The timing of high prevalence of hyperhidrosis varied by region. Skin Research, 23 : 251-261, 2024