Global climate change has contributed to the intensity, frequency, and duration of heatwave events. The association between heatwaves and elderly mortality is highly researched in developed countries. In contrast, heatwave impact on hospital admissions has been insufficiently studied worldwide due to data availability and sensitivity. In our opinion, the relationship between heatwaves and hospital admissions is worthwhile to explore as it could have a profound impact on healthcare systems. Therefore, we aimed to investigate the associations between heatwaves and hospitalisations for the elderly by age group in Selangor, Malaysia, from 2010 to 2020. We further explored the impact of heatwaves on the risks of cause-specific hospital admissions across age groups within the elderly. This study applied generalized additive models (GAMs) with the Poisson family and distributed lag models (DLMs) to estimate the effect of heatwaves on hospitalisations. According to the findings, there was no significant increase in hospitalisations for those aged 60 and older during heatwaves; however, a rise in mean apparent temperature (ATmean) by 1 °C significantly increased the risk of hospital admission by 12.9%. Heatwaves had no immediate effects on hospital admissions among elderly patients, but significant delay effects were identified for ATmean with a lag of 0–3 days. The hospital admission rates of the elderly groups started declining after a 5-day average following the heatwave event. Females were found to be relatively more vulnerable than males during heatwave periods. Consequently, these results can provide a reference to improve public health strategies to target elderly people who are at the greatest risk of hospitalisations due to heatwaves. Development of early heatwave and health warning systems for the elderly would assist with preventing and reducing health risks while also minimising the burden on the whole hospital system in Selangor, Malaysia.

The pitch template initiated by Faff (2015, 2021) is employed in this pitching research letter (PRL) for my PhD research topic. It not only facilitates a systematic approach for researchers to articulate a research idea critically but also aids new PhD students and novice researchers in overcoming the uncertainties in their early research stage. This PRL comprises the introduction and brief review of the pitching template, followed by a personal reflection regarding the implementation of the framework and its benefits.

This pitch letter summarizes my personal reflections of employing the pitching research template created by Faff (2015, 2018) to my PhD research topic. It explains how the template guides the author to articulate and conceptualize a research idea critically, clearly, systematically and effectively. Specifically, this letter positively supports the use of the pitching research template, in particular for new PhD student or novice researcher during their early stage of research process.