Time-Course of Cause-Specific Hospital Admissions During Snowstorms: An Analysis of Electronic Medical Records From Major Hospitals in Boston, Massachusetts.

Time-Course of Cause-Specific Hospital Admissions During Snowstorms: An Analysis of Electronic Medical Records From Major Hospitals in Boston, Massachusetts. Am J Epidemiol. 2017 Jan 30;: Authors: Bobb JF, Ho KK, Yeh RW, Harrington L, Zai A, Liao KP, Dominici F Abstract With global climate change, more frequent severe snowstorms are expected; however, evidence regarding their health effects is very limited. We gathered detailed medical records on hospital admissions (n = 433,037 admissions) from the 4 largest hospitals in Boston, Massachusetts, during the winters of 2010-2015. We estimated the percentage increase in hospitalizations for cardiovascular and cold-related diseases, falls, and injuries on the day of and for 6 days after a day with low (0.05-5.0 inches), moderate (5.1-10.0 inches), or high (>10.0 inches) snowfall using distributed lag regression models. We found that cardiovascular disease admissions decreased by 32% on high snowfall days (relative risk (RR) = 0.68, 95% confidence interval (CI): 0.54, 0.85) but increased by 23% 2 days after (RR = 1.23, 95% CI: 1.01, 1.49); cold-related admissions increased by 3.7% on high snowfall days (RR = 3.7, 95% CI: 1.6, 8.6) and remained high for 5 days after; and admissions for falls increased by 18% on average in the 6 days after a moderate snowfall day (RR = 1.18, 95% CI: 1.09, 1.27). We did not find a higher risk of hospitalizations for injuries. To our knowledge, th...
Source: Am J Epidemiol - Category: Epidemiology Authors: Tags: Am J Epidemiol Source Type: research