Elevated Heat Stroke Risk in Older Adults Indirectly Caused by COVID-19 Restrictions in a Provincial Prefecture of Japan

Otani, Shinji; Ishizu, Satomi Funaki; Masumoto, Toshio; Amano, Hiroki; Kurozawa, Youichi

doi:10.3390/ecerph-3-09073

Cited by 3 publications

(5 citation statements)

References 10 publications

(7 reference statements)

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“…Although the timing of emergency declarations during other periods may not be consistent with the reduction in heat-related ambulance calls, our results also indicated behavioral changes, including stay-at-home requests, cancellation of outdoor activities, and implementation of remote work, have had some impacts on the decrease of emergency transports, which is consistent with previous studies (Hatakeyama et al 2021, Otani et al 2021, Uryu et al 2021. The implementation of stay-at-home requests and the restrictions on outdoor activities can lead to a decrease in overall exposure to high temperatures, which are major risk factors for heat-related illnesses.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 81%

“…The reasons for this decrease are complex. One possible reason is the changes in individual behavior because of the government's declarations of a state of emergency or non-binding self-restrictions due to local government requests (Hatakeyama et al 2021, Otani et al 2021, Uryu et al 2021. However, we cannot find any declarations by the government of a state of emergency in the summers of 2020 and 2022 in these regions.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 74%

“…Uryu et al (2021) investigated the daily number of heat-related ambulance calls from 2008 to 2020 and found that the number of heat-related ambulance calls did not significantly change compared to the past trend. Otani et al (2021) examined the heat-related emergency transport data from Tottori prefecture and observed an increased risk of heat stroke in older people due to the COVID-19 countermeasures. Seposo et al (2021) found an overall reduction in heat-related ambulance calls, and the possible reasons were physical interventions and behavioral changes.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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The impact of COVID-19 on heat-related ambulance calls and the challenges for emergency medical transport in the Kansai region, Japan: a mixed methods approach

Ke,

Ialnazov,

Takara

2024

Environ. Res.: Health

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The COVID-19 pandemic, coupled with more frequent and stronger heatwaves, has introduced a novel confluence of challenges. for example, it has become very difficult for emergency transport staffs to differentiate between COVID-19 and heat stroke at the scene because they share some similar symptoms. This paper studied the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on heat-related ambulance calls and identifies the challenges faced by local fire departments in the Kansai region of Japan 2020-2022 by using historical data analysis and an online questionnaire survey. We utilized a heat-related ambulance calls prediction model developed in our previous research based on the historical data (2008 ~ 2019) and projected the expected number of heat-related ambulance calls from 2020 to 2022. Then, a comparison was done between the expected number and the actual number of daily heat-related ambulance calls to examine the changes of heat-related ambulance calls in six prefectures of the Kansai region. We found a statistically significant decrease, ranging from 77.1% to 96.8%, of heat-related ambulance calls during the COVID-19 pandemic in all Kansai prefectures. The decline in heat-related ambulance calls can be attributed by changes in people’s daily lifestyles such as the increase of remote work and decrease of outdoor exercise. However, it may also be influenced by the strain on the emergency medical resource. Another research finding highlighted significant pressures on local fire departments and emergency medical transport systems during the pandemic. The predominant challenge for local fire departments was finding available medical facilities for their patients. Improving the efficiency of emergency medical transport system and enhancing the coordination between emergency medical services and healthcare facilities may offer a more resilient response in future crises.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 81%

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 74%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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The impact of COVID-19 on heat-related ambulance calls and the challenges for emergency medical transport in the Kansai region, Japan: a mixed methods approach

Ke,

Ialnazov,

Takara

2024

Environ. Res.: Health

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“…Australia [13,14] China [15,16] France [17] Germany [18,19] India [20][21][22] Iran [23] Israel [24] Italy [25] Japan [8,15,[26][27][28][29][30][31]] Netherlands [11,32] Portugal [15] Serbia [33] Singapore [21] United Kingdom [34][35][36][37] United States [38][39][40] Due to the limited sources of data available for exploring the combined impacts of these intersecting public health crises, we sought to address these knowledge gaps by examining references to COVID-19 in digital media articles on the 2021 Heat Dome in Canada published between June 2021 and February 2022. As the media serves as a significant information source to the public [41] and powerful medium for raising public awareness [42], analyzing media articles is one qualitative method that can help capture more details about the compounding health impacts of two or more health crises.…”

Section: Country Articlesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…However, some of these actions may have inadvertently conflicted with best practices to protect people from extreme heat (e.g., access or capacity restrictions for cooling centers to respect physical distancing mandates) [7]. Additionally, COVID-19 restrictions may have discouraged people from accessing cooling centers or seeking emergency support due to the fear of being exposed to the virus [8]. Therefore, public health interventions for COVID-19 may have disrupted health measures typically implemented in response to extreme heat.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Intersection of the COVID-19 Pandemic and the 2021 Heat Dome in Canadian Digital News Media: A Content Analysis

Tetzlaff,

Goulet,

Gorman

et al. 2023

IJERPH

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During the 2021 Heat Dome, 619 people in British Columbia died due to the heat. This public health disaster was made worse by the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. Few studies have explored the intersection of heat with COVID-19, and none in Canada. Considering that climate change is expected to increase the frequency of extreme heat events, it is important to improve our understanding of intersecting public health crises. Thus, this study aimed to explore media-based public health communication in Canada during the COVID-19 pandemic and the 2021 Heat Dome. A qualitative content analysis was conducted on a subset of media articles (n = 520) related to the COVID-19 pandemic which were identified through a previous media analysis on the 2021 Heat Dome (n = 2909). Many of the articles provided conflicting health messages that may have confused the public about which health protective actions to take. The articles also showed how the COVID-19 pandemic may have exacerbated the health impacts of the 2021 Heat Dome, as pandemic-related public health measures may have deterred people away from protecting themselves from heat. This study, which provides novel insight into the prioritization of public health messaging when an extreme heat event occurs concurrently with a pandemic, supports the need for consistent heat health guidance.

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Heatstroke-related ambulance dispatch risk before and during COVID-19 pandemic: Subgroup analysis by age, severity, and incident place

Hatakeyama

Seposo

2022

Science of The Total Environment

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Background In summer 2020 under the COVID-19 pandemic, the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare has made public warnings that specific preventive measures such as maskwearing, stay-at-home orders, may increase heatstroke risk. In our previous work, we found a lower risk of heatstroke-related ambulance dispatches (HSAD) during the COVID-19 period, however, it is uncertain whether similar risk reductions can be observed in different vulnerable subgroups. This study aimed to determine the HSAD risk before and during the COVID-19 pandemic by age, severity, and incident place subgroups. Method A summer-specific (June–September), interrupted time-series analysis was performed, using daily HSAD and meteorological data from 47 Japanese prefectures from 2017 to 2020. A two-stage analysis was applied to determine the association between HSAD and COVID-19 pandemic, adjusting for maximum temperature, humidity, seasonality, and relevant temporal adjustments. A generalized linear model was utilized in the first stage to estimate the prefecture-specific effect estimates. Thereafter, a fixed effect meta-analysis in the second stage was implemented to pool the first stage estimates. Subsequently, subgroup analysis via an interaction by age, severity, and incident place was used to analyze the HSAD risk among subgroups. Results A total of 274,031 HSAD cases was recorded across 47 Japanese prefectures. The average total number of HSAD in the pre-COVID-19 period was 69,721, meanwhile, the COVID-19 period was 64,869. Highest reductions in the risks was particularly observed in the young category (ratio of relative risk (RRR) = 0.54, 95% Confidential Interval (CI): 0.51, 0.57) compared to the elderly category. Whereas highest increment in the risks were observed in severe/death (RRR = 1.25, 95% CI: 1.13, 1.37) compared to the mild category. Conclusion COVID-19 situation exhibited a non-uniform change in the HSAD risk for all subgroups, with the magnitude of the risks varying by age, severity, and incident place.

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Elevated Heat Stroke Risk in Older Adults Indirectly Caused by COVID-19 Restrictions in a Provincial Prefecture of Japan

Cited by 3 publications

References 10 publications

The impact of COVID-19 on heat-related ambulance calls and the challenges for emergency medical transport in the Kansai region, Japan: a mixed methods approach

The impact of COVID-19 on heat-related ambulance calls and the challenges for emergency medical transport in the Kansai region, Japan: a mixed methods approach

The Intersection of the COVID-19 Pandemic and the 2021 Heat Dome in Canadian Digital News Media: A Content Analysis

Heatstroke-related ambulance dispatch risk before and during COVID-19 pandemic: Subgroup analysis by age, severity, and incident place

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