Heat warnings, mortality, and hospital admissions among older adults in the United States.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Heat warnings are issued in advance of forecast extreme heat events, yet little evidence is available regarding their effectiveness in reducing heat-related illness and death. We estimated the association of heat warnings and advisories (collectively, "alerts") issued by the United States National Weather Service with all-cause mortality and cause-specific hospitalizations among Medicare beneficiaries aged 65 years and older in 2,817 counties, 2006-2016.

Methods

In each county, we compared days with heat alerts to days without heat alerts, matched on daily maximum heat index and month. We used conditional Poisson regression models stratified on county, adjusting for year, day of week, federal holidays, and lagged daily maximum heat index.

Results

We identif

SUBMITTER: Weinberger KR 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC11549953 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature