Daily heat-related illness (HRI) emergency department visit rates peaked in the 2023 warm season months, according to research published in the April 18 issue of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.
Ambarish Vaidyanathan, Ph.D., from the CDC in Atlanta, and colleagues examined emergency department visits associated with HRI from the National Syndromic Surveillance Program. Daily HRI emergency department visit rates were compared during the warm-season months (May to September) in 2023 to those during 2018 to 2022.
The researchers found that daily HRI emergency department visit rates peaked in several regions in the warm season months in 2023 and remained elevated for a prolonged duration. Ninety-two percent of the 119,605 HRI emergency department visits during Jan. 1 to Dec. 31, 2023, occurred during May to September; July and August accounted for the highest average HRI emergency department visit rate (303 per 100,000 visits) compared with other warm season months. More males sought care in emergency departments for HRIs than females, especially males aged 18 to 64 years.
“The record-breaking temperatures of the 2023 warm-weather season had a substantial public health impact, and this trend might increase in the coming years because of climate change,” the authors write.
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