Generalizability of heat-related health risk associations observed in a large healthcare claims database of patients with commercial health insurance.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Extreme ambient heat is unambiguously associated with higher risk of illness and death. The Optum Labs Data Warehouse (OLDW), a database of medical claims from US-based patients with commercial or Medicare Advantage health insurance, has been used to quantify heat-related health impacts. Whether results for the insured sub-population are generalizable to the broader population has to our knowledge not been documented. We sought to address this question, for the US population in California from 2012 to 2019.

Methods

We examined changes in daily rates of emergency department (ED) encounters and in-patient hospitalization encounters for all-causes, heat-related outcomes, renal disease, mental/behavioral disorders, cardiovascular disease, and respiratory disease. OLDW

SUBMITTER: Milando CW 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7616519 | biostudies-literature | 2024 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature