Abstract
Heat waves have been linked to increases in emergency-related morbidity, but more research is needed on the demographic and disease-specific aspects of these morbidities. Using a case-crossover approach, over 700,000 daily emergency department hospital admissions in Charlottesville, Virginia, U.S.A. from 2005–2016 are compared between warm season heat wave and non-heat wave periods. Heat waves are defined based on the exceedance, for at least three consecutive days, of two apparent temperature thresholds (35 °C and 37 °C) that account for 3 and 6% of the period of record. Total admissions and admissions for whites, blacks, males, females, and 20–49 years old are significantly elevated during heat waves, as are admissions related to a variety of diagnostic categories, including diabetes, pregnancy complications, and injuries and poisoning. Evidence that heat waves raise emergency department admissions across numerous demographic and disease categories suggests that heat exerts comorbidity influences that extend beyond the more well-studied direct relationships such as heat strokes and cardiac arrest.
Highlights
It has been well known for many decades that days with anomalously high heat and humidity are associated with peaks in human mortality [1,2,3,4,5]
We identified 28 heat waves based on the 35 ◦ C apparent temperature (AT) threshold, or 2.2 heat waves per year (Table 3)
Emergency department (ED) admissions to the University of Virginia Medical Center in Charlottesville, Virginia from 2005–2016 were examined to determine if admissions were higher during heat waves
Summary
It has been well known for many decades that days with anomalously high heat and humidity are associated with peaks in human mortality [1,2,3,4,5]. Less research has been conducted on heat waves and morbidity [10,11,19]. There is considerable disagreement in the literature on relationships between heat waves and emergency department and/or hospital admissions [10,26]. Renal and respiratory admissions are commonly linked to heat waves [28,34,35,36], some studies have identified disease-specific local relationships that have not been replicated in other populations [37,38]. Perhaps because of this lack of convergence of study results, it is incumbent upon health care providers to attempt to understand the relationships between heat waves and morbidity to optimize care, as well as to provide the best available public health information during higher risk periods
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