Heat Waves and Hospital Admissions for Mental Disorders in Northern Vietnam

Trang Phan Minh*

doi:10.1289/isee.2016.3059

Abstract

Heat Waves and Hospital Admissions for Mental Disorders in Northern Vietnam

Highlights

In recent years, climate change has become a global challenge with its impacts on human health due to the exposure to weather variations and extreme weather, such as heatwaves, floods, storm-surges, droughts, with increased morbidity as well as mortality worldwide [1,2,3].High temperature can cause morbidity and mortality and people at high risk include: the elderly, children, and persons with pre-existing chronic diseases, such as cardiovascular diseasePLOS ONE | DOI:10.1371/journal.pone.0155609 May 19, 2016Heat Waves, Hospital Admissions, Mental Disorders In Northern Vietnam and respiratory or mental disorders [4]
We considered a database from Hanoi Mental Hospital covering mainly emergency cases for mental disorders in Hanoi City
The hospital admissions were diagnosed according to the International Classification of Diseases 10 (ICD 10) by mental health specialists from the hospital

Summary

Introduction

Climate change has become a global challenge with its impacts on human health due to the exposure to weather variations and extreme weather, such as heatwaves, floods, storm-surges, droughts, with increased morbidity as well as mortality worldwide [1,2,3].High temperature can cause morbidity and mortality and people at high risk include: the elderly, children, and persons with pre-existing chronic diseases, such as cardiovascular diseasePLOS ONE | DOI:10.1371/journal.pone.0155609 May 19, 2016Heat Waves, Hospital Admissions, Mental Disorders In Northern Vietnam and respiratory or mental disorders [4]. Climate change has become a global challenge with its impacts on human health due to the exposure to weather variations and extreme weather, such as heatwaves, floods, storm-surges, droughts, with increased morbidity as well as mortality worldwide [1,2,3]. Some epidemiological and experimental studies showed a relationship between heat and violence, increasing rates of assault, rape and robbery owing to rising global temperatures [8, 9]. This may be related to more stress hormones released into the blood, a result of excessive exposure to heat [10]. An increase in alcohol consumption, drug abuse, violence, family break-ups and suicide has been reported during periods of heatwaves as well as after extreme weather events, in rural and semi-rural areas [7, 11, 12]

Methods

Results

Discussion

Conclusion