Spikes in emergency room visits found for respiratory problems in the days before a thunderstorm

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A team of researchers from the University of Oregon, Harvard Medical School, and the University of Illinois has found evidence of an increase in the number of people going to the emergency room for respiratory problems in the days before a thunderstorm. In their paper published in the journal JAMA Internal Medicine, the group describes their study of Medicare data and thunderstorms and what they learned from it.

Over the past several decades, there has been anecdotal evidence of spikes in emergency room visits for patients with respiratory complaints in the days leading up to major thunderstorms. It was first described in 1983 in England and then twice again in Australia in 1987 and 2016. At that time, scientists had no explanation for the spikes, though they suspected that it was linked to an increase in pollen in the air. In this new effort, the researchers looked at Medicare data describing emergency room visits for people over 65 with respiratory problems over the years 1999 to 2012, and compared it with atmospheric conditions for those involved.

Read more of the original article from MedicalXpress

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