title: The association of weather on pediatric emergency department visits in Changwon, Korea (2005-2014).
abstract: BACKGROUND
  It is widely believed that patients are less likely to visit hospitals during bad weather. We hypothesized that weather and emergency department (ED) visits are associated. Thus, we investigated the association between pediatric ED visits and weather, and sought to determine whether admissions to the ED are affected by meteorological factors.
  
  
  METHODS
  We retrospectively analyzed all 87,242 emergency visits to Samsung Changwon Hospital by pediatric patients under 19years of age from January 2005 to December 2014. ED visits were categorized by disease. We used Poisson regression and generalized linear model to examine the relationships between current weather and ED visits. Additionally a distributed lag non-linear model was used to investigate the effect of weather on ED visits.
  
  
  RESULTS
  During this 10-year study period, the average temperature and diurnal temperature range (DTR) were 14.7°C and 8.2°C, respectively. There were 1,145days of rain or snow (31.4%) during the 3,652-day study period. The volume of ED visits decreased on days of rain or snow. Additionally ED visits increased 2days after rainy or snowy days. The volume of ED visits increased 1.013 times with every 1°C increase in DTR. The volume of ED visits by patients with trauma, digestive diseases, and respiratory diseases increased when DTR was over 10°C. As rainfall increased to over 25mm, the ward admission rate (23.8%, p=0.018) of ED patients increased significantly.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The volume of ED visits decreased on days of rain or snow and the ED visits were increased 2days after rainy or snowy days. The volume of ED visits increased for every 1°C increase in DTR.
authors.affiliation: Department of Pediatrics, Samsung Changwon Hospital, Sungkyunkwan University School of Medicine, Changwon, Republic of Korea.
authors.forename: Hae Jeong
authors.initials: HJ
authors.lastname: Lee
authors.affiliation: Department of Biostatistics, Samsung Changwon Hospital, Sungkyunkwan University School of Medicine, Changwon, Republic of Korea.
authors.forename: Mi Hyeon
authors.initials: MH
authors.lastname: Jin
authors.affiliation: Department of Pediatrics, Samsung Changwon Hospital, Sungkyunkwan University School of Medicine, Changwon, Republic of Korea. Electronic address: ljh3643@hanmail.net.
authors.forename: Jun Hwa
authors.initials: JH
authors.lastname: Lee
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D004636:Emergency Service, Hospital / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D005260:Female; D006760:Hospitalization / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D006801:Humans; D007223:Infant; D008297:Male; D008685:Meteorological Concepts; D056910:Republic of Korea / Q000453:epidemiology; D012621:Seasons; D014887:Weather
keywords: Diurnal temperature range; Emergency department visits; Korea; Pediatric; Rainfall; Weather