Recent research has shown that an increase in injuries can be attributed to changes in weather. In particular increases in temperature according to the Emergency Medicine Journal have been shown to affect the amount of injuries in children and adults.
For every 5°C increase in temperature there has been an increase of 10% in hospital admissions for serious injuries in children. Equally shown is that a 5°C drop in minimum daily temperature has indicated that adults have a 3% higher admission rate. Research has also shown that snow can provoke an 8% rise in injuries.
All research is based on studies done on both adults and children in 21 emergency units across England during the years of 1996 and 2006. Patients that had required transfers, admission for more than 3 days or had died after being injured had been included in the research to explore any other patterns that may have transpired. Nearly 60,000 individuals have taken part in this research.
This study also found that for every 5°C increase in maximum daily temperature, along with 2 additional hours of sunlight, the admission rate increases in adults by 2%. The strongest correlation was for children. The same temperature increases had a staggering increase of 10% in admissions. The study also found seasonal patterns. More specifically, during April to September the rate of children’s admissions to hospitals with serious injuries rose to 50% higher. Also of note, this higher admission rate peaked on weekends.
This research proves to be groundbreaking. With serious injuries among adults and children being shown to increase with weather, healthcare units worldwide could potentially use this research and future trends to properly staff during the most trying parts of the year.
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