Ambient temperature and ambulance car visits in Japan by age category and severity

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BACKGROUND AND AIM: Using the Japanese public domain data, we have reported that a severe heat exposure during the power outage on 10th of September due to the typhoon raised the number of ambulance car visits due to heatstroke disproportionately. Here, we investigated which age groups and which severity categories were affected. METHODS: Because the Typhoon Faxai hit Japan in September 2019, we collected the ambulance car visit data for September from 2010 to 2019 from the Fire and Disaster Management Agency, the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications. Corresponding weather data were collected from the Japan Meteorological Agency. Both datasets are publicly available from the respective websites. Because the already-categorized data either by age group or by severity level were available, we set the age groups as 0-6, 7-17, 18-64 and 65+, and severity levels as mild, moderate, severe, and deceased. The comparison was on the difference between the September heatstroke risk in 2019 and that in the preceding years. First, we examined Chiba prefecture, in which the power outage was by far extensive. As the control, we also examined the surrounding 6 prefectures, where the power outage was minimal. RESULTS:As for Chiba, age groups 18-64 and 65+ and mild to moderate severity groups showed much higher risk. The control prefectures did not show increased risk. Deceased cases were rare, but two deaths in Chiba and no death in the other prefectures were identified on 10th of September. CONCLUSIONS:The severe heat exposure during the typhoon-related power outage increased the risk of mild and moderate heatstroke among 18 years and older age group. KEYWORDS: Temperature,Heatstroke, Ambulance car visits