Abstract
Dear Editor,
We read with great interest the editorial by Lim, Balsari and Hung recently published on Hong Kong Journal of Emergency Medicine. 1 We do agree with the authors as they state that emergency physicians play a major role in preparing the communities for the challenges related to the climate change. In particular, we believe that emergency departments (EDs) offer a unique point of view on the health need of the population; moreover, the correlation between climatic factors and daily ED visits may represent a good model to understand the impact of climate on human morbidity. 2
Thus, we conducted the analyses to determine the relationship between climatic factors and ED visits; we performed a retrospective study at the Santa Croce e Carle teaching hub hospital in Cuneo, north-west of Italy, over a 2-year period (1 January 2018 to 31 December 2020). Adults presenting to the ED for several pathologies were included. Data on mean barometric pressure, temperature and rain or snow were collected daily from a weather station located 1 km from the hospital. The relationship of daily or between-day (interday) changes in climatic factors and ED visits was evaluated using time series analysis.
In the studied period, there were 151,787 total ED visits; here, we report all the correlations with a statistical significance (i.e. p ⩽ 0.05). Negative interday difference in barometric pressure, lower values of barometric pressure and lower temperature were associated with a decrease in daily ED accesses; in addition, we observed fewer ED accesses during rainy or snowy days. Lower temperature and negative variations in barometric pressure were associated with more ED admissions for respiratory diseases (asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease exacerbations and pneumonia). Besides, we observed a positive correlation between barometric pressure differences and presentations for stroke; finally, lower values of barometric pressure were associated with a greater number of visits for psychiatric disorders.
In conclusion, we can state that a correlation between weather factors and ED visits exists; this correlation is particularly strong for respiratory diseases. In the editorial’s conclusion, Lim and colleagues wonder if Emergency Medicine is ready to face the greatest challenge of our times. We believe that an important step is rising awareness among the society that climate is a fundamental determinant of health; fully understanding the interaction between climate and human morbidity may represent a way for coping with climate change.
Footnotes
Acknowledgements
The authors acknowledge Datameteo Educational for providing weather data.
Declaration of conflicting interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship and/or publication of this article.
Authorship and availability of data and materials
All authors read and approved the paper, met the criteria for authorship as established by the International Committee of Medical Journals Editors, believe that the paper represents honest work, have full control of all primary data and are able to verify the validity of the results reported.
Informed consent
Written informed consent was not necessary because no patient data have been included in the manuscript.
Ethical approval
This study has been approved by local ethical committee. This study complied with the Declaration of Helsinki.
