Open Heart · Oct 28, 2026

Seasonal variation in cardiovascular mortality and hospitalisations and its implications for public health planning: a prospective cohort study

By Talebi A, Welsh P, Henderson AD et al.

BACKGROUND: We characterised seasonal patterns in cardiovascular (CV) mortality and hospitalisations to understand how CV health might be affected by climate change. METHODS: We analysed the UK Biobank cohort recruited from 22 centres between 2006 and 2010. Seasonal mortality rates and hospitalisation rates were determined for death (all cause, CV and non-CV death) and first recorded of CV hospitalisations (heart failure (HF), myocardial infarction (MI), stroke and peripheral vascular disease (PVD)). Seasonal trends were evaluated using a cosinor model with a binomial family and by sex, age, ethnicity and socioeconomic deprivation. Multivariable models were adjusted for demographic, socioeconomic, lifestyle and clinical covariates, and assessment centre was subsequently included as a random intercept to account for clustering within centres. RESULTS: Data from 453 597 participants were included, 56% were women, with a mean age of 56 years (SD 8). There were 33 857 deaths (10 807 (31.9%) were CV and 23 050 (68.1%) non-CV deaths). All-cause mortality showed evidence of seasonal variation, and CV and non-CV deaths had significant seasonal variation (p<0.001), with the highest rates in winter. The maximum and minimum of all-cause mortality rates were 62.2 and 51.5 per 10 000 person-years in winter and summer respectively. There were 12 273, 9520, 7137, 14 492 hospitalisations for HF, MI, stroke and PVD. MI and stroke showed clear winter peaks (p<0.001), HF and PVD also displayed seasonal variation (p<0.001) with the highest hospitalisation rate in spring. CONCLUSIONS: Rates of deaths, MI and stroke hospitalisations were highest during winter months. The findings imply that colder temperatures rather than warmer temperatures are a more significant driver of adverse outcomes.

doi.org/10.1136/openhrt-2026-004422Open accessPubMed 42951307Populations