The impact of snow on orthopaedic trauma referrals

What is the effect of the weather on trauma workload? A systematic review of the literature

“…This is illustrated by the effect of snowfall on hip fracture rate. Whereas studies from the UK and Spain found no significant effect of snow on hip fracture rate [26,34], studies from Minnesota, US, and Montreal, Canada, found that snowy conditions increase the risk of hip fracture [23,24]. This may be explained by behavioural differences that mean that in colder climates it is the younger people who are more likely to venture out in the snow.…”

“…Whereas decreasing temperature was associated with a significant decrease in the daily number of fractures for patients <15 years, those patients >30 years experienced a significant increase. In a UK study assessing ankle fractures there was a significant increase in the fracture rate on snowy days [34].…”

“…In a study from Montreal, Canada, Levy et al found that, for women, the strongest association between inclement weather and fracture rate was in the 50-64 years group, but in women over the age of 80 there was no consistent association; for men, inclement weather was associated with increased rates of hip fracture at older ages [24]. However, studies from the UK and Spain showed no significant effect of snow on hip fracture rate [26,34]. In a multicentre Spanish study including 2121 patients, Tenias et al found that windier days were strongly associated with more fractures especially in patients under the age of 75 [26].…”

“…Papers using fracture as the outcome measure (13) Thirteen papers used fracture as the outcome measure of interest, either hip fracture [22][23][24][25][26][27], distal radius fracture [28][29][30][31][32] or a combination of fracture types including, hip, distal radius, ankle and humeral fractures [33,34].…”

Does Weather Matter? The Effect of Weather Patterns and Temporal Factors on Pediatric Orthopedic Trauma Volume

“…In general, the assumption that weather patterns influence orthopedic trauma is supported in the literature [1-12]. Several studies in the general surgery and orthopedic literature show adult trauma to be positively correlated with temperature and negatively correlated with precipitation [4, 8, 9] while others have shown that snowfall can increase consults in the winter due to sledding accidents and slipping on ice [1, 2, 6, 10, 11]. Few studies, however, have looked at daily weather patterns and temporal factors as they effect a population of children, whose play activities are particularly influenced by weather and school schedules [7, 9].…”