In the United States, heat waves have increased the number of emergency department visits to children’s hospitals. — Shutterstock pic via ETX Studio
NEW YORK, Feb 8 — In the United States, heat waves have increased the number of emergency department visits to children’s hospitals.
About one-third of these visits were for illnesses specifically caused by extreme heat.
According to a recent study published in Environmental Health Perspectives, heat waves, which are increasing due to climate change, are responsible for a growing number of emergency room visits for children in the United States.
This estimate was based on administrative data from 47 US children’s hospitals.
Between 2016 and 2018, there were 3.8 million emergency department visits at these health facilities involving Americans under 18 years of age.
Approximately 11.8 per cent of these emergency department visits occurred during heat wave events, across all causes.
More than 31 per cent of these visits are associated with illnesses specifically related to heat, including dehydration, electrolyte disorders (an imbalance of essential nutrients such as magnesium or potassium), and ear infections.
“Greenhouse gas emissions have led to higher average temperatures globally and in the United States over the past century, accompanied by more frequent and intense days of extreme heat (Vose et al. 2017).
The growing evidence that heat presents substantial risk to children underscores the need for more aggressive adaptation measures and suggests that continued climate change will have important implications for the health and well-being of children in the years ahead,” warn the study authors.
According to a UNICEF report published in August 2021, the health of one billion children around the world is threatened by the effects of global warming. — ETX Studio