Risk, Attributable Fraction and Attributable Number of Cause-Specific Heat-Related Emergency Hospital Admissions in Switzerland

• Main Authors: Florian Schulte (Author), Martin Röösli (Author), Martina S. Ragettli (Author)
• Format: Book
• Published: Frontiers Media S.A., 2024-10-01T00:00:00Z.
• Subjects: article
• Online Access: Connect to this object online.
• Notes: 1661-8564; 10.3389/ijph.2024.1607349
• Keywords: hot weather; morbidity; emergency hospital admissions; attributable risk; heat-related diseases; Public aspects of medicine; RA1-1270
• Source: International Journal of Public Health, Vol 69 (2024)

ObjectivesWe assessed the relationship between heat and emergency hospital admissions (EHAs) in Switzerland using clinically relevant metrics.MethodsApplying distributed lag non-linear models, we investigated temperature-admission associations between May and September 1998-2019 for various disease groups, by age class and gender. We estimated the relative risk (RR) for moderate (29°C) and extreme (34°C) daily maximum temperatures relative to disease-specific optimum temperature, and calculated attributable fractions (AFs) for hot days and the following week. We also calculated the total number of heat-related EHAs.ResultsWe attributed 31,387 (95% confidence interval: 21,567-40,408) EHAs to above-optimal temperatures, 1.1% (0.7%-1.4%) of the total. Extreme temperatures increased the EHA risk for mental, infectious and neurological diseases. We observed particularly high AFs due to extreme heat for dehydration (85.9%, 95% CI: 82.4%-88.8%) and acute kidney injury (AKI, 56.1%, 95% CI: 45.3%-64.7%). While EHA risk generally increased with age, we also found high RRs for infectious diseases in children (0-15 years) and AKI in young adults (15-64 years).ConclusionHot weather increases the EHA risk in Switzerland. Therefore a comprehensive clinical and public health response is needed.