Short-Term Associations Between Relative Humidity and Pediatric Afebrile Seizure Presentations: A Distributed Lag...

To evaluate the association between daily meteorological variability and pediatric afebrile seizure presentations using ecological time-series analysis and Distributed Lag Non-linear Models (DLNMs).

This retrospective ecological time-series study was conducted in a tertiary pediatric emergency department in northwestern Türkiye. Pediatric seizure-related presentations recorded between January 2019 and December 2023 were retrospectively screened for case identification and clinical validation. The primary environmental exposure analysis was restricted to eligible afebrile seizure presentations occurring during the 2023 calendar year and linked to synchronized daily meteorological data. Associations between meteorological variables and daily afebrile seizure presentation counts were assessed using multivariable Quasi-Poisson regression and Distributed Lag Non-linear Models (DLNMs).

Among 777 screened seizure-related presentations, 67 children contributing 157 afebrile seizure presentations during 2023 were included. Relative humidity showed the strongest independent association with pediatric afebrile seizure presentations. Each 10-percentage-point increase in relative humidity was associated with an 18.6% higher rate of pediatric afebrile seizure presentations (IRR = 1.186; 95% CI: 1.103-1.275; p < 0.001). DLNM analysis demonstrated a significant cumulative delayed association, with a 10-percentage-point increase in relative humidity associated with a 15% higher cumulative rate of afebrile seizure presentations across the 0-3-day lag period (cumulative IRR = 1.15; 95% CI: 1.08-1.22; p < 0.001). Ambient temperature and precipitation demonstrated less consistent associations across analytical approaches, whereas humidity-related effects remained robust throughout all analyses.

Higher relative humidity was associated with increased pediatric afebrile seizure presentations and represented the only meteorological exposure demonstrating both significant contemporaneous and cumulative delayed associations. These findings suggest that meteorological variability, particularly relative humidity, may contribute to short-term and delayed fluctuations in seizure-related healthcare utilization among children. Given the single-center ecological design and the one-year environmental exposure period, these findings should be interpreted as population-level and hypothesis-generating and should not be considered a basis for individual risk prediction or humidity-based clinical counseling. Further multicenter, multi-year prospective studies incorporating individual-level and higher-resolution environmental exposure assessment are needed to confirm these findings and clarify the biological mechanisms underlying humidity-associated seizure susceptibility in pediatric populations.