. Geographical variation and temporal trend of myocardial infarction hospital admissions in Calgary

Coronary heart disease is a leading public health concern. The etiology of myocardial infarction may include both individual and contextual factors which are not fully accounted for in existing research. Spatial and temporal analysis of disease data provids a strategy for identifying influencing contextual factors in areas with high MI disease burden and may generate new hypotheses on determinants of the disease. Temporal analysis is applied to investigate the temporal trends in monthly age and gender stratified myocardial infarction hospitalizations from 2004 to 2013 in Calgary. Ripley’s K function is performed for spatial pattern analysis, and complemented by hot spot analysis to identify MI clusters. The trend analysis exhibits a statistically significant declining trend for all the goups. Most groups show a peak of MI occurrence in fall and winter. The group over 75 features the highest incidence of MI, and males account for a larger proporation of MI. Spatial analysis suggests MI incidence is clustered in communities with a larger proportion of older people, lower socioeconomic status, and closer to the airport and industrial areas.