Absolute humidity anomalies and the influenza onsets in Russia: a computational study

In the current work we use a computational approach to analyze the association between the anomalous drops of absolute humidity and the subsequent onset of influenza epidemics in Russia. The correlation between these two factors is searched relying on the data of acute respiratory infection incidence in Saint Petersburg, Moscow and Novosibirsk. The analysis results, along with the output from the same analysis for Ile-de-France region (Paris and its suburbs), were compared with those achieved by Dr. Jeffrey Shaman and his co-authors for the US states. We show that although the analysis results for Ile-de-France are in agreement with the conclusions of Dr. Shaman, it does not hold true for the case of Russia, where the relation between the low levels of absolute humidity and the influenza onset is proved to be statistically insignificant.