The Impacts of Air Temperature on Accidental Casualties in Beijing, China

Abstract

Emergency room (ER) visits for accidental casualties, according to the International Classification of Deceases 10th Revision Chapters 19 and 20, include injury, poisoning, and external causes (IPEC). Annual distribution of 187,008 ER visits that took place between 2009 and 2011 in Beijing, China displayed regularity rather than random characteristics. The annual cycle from the Fourier series fitting of the number of ER visits was found to explain 63.2% of its total variance. In this study, the possible effect and regulation of meteorological conditions on these ER visits are investigated through the use of correlation analysis, as well as statistical modeling by using the Distributed Lag Non-linear Model and Generalized Additive Model. Correlation analysis indicated that meteorological variables that positively correlated with temperature have a positive relationship with the number of ER visits, and vice versa. The temperature metrics of maximum, minimum, and mean temperatures were found to have similar overall impacts, including both the direct impact on human mental/physical conditions and indirect impact on human behavior. The lag analysis indicated that the overall impacts of temperatures higher than the 50th percentile on ER visits occur immediately, whereas low temperatures show protective effects in the first few days. Accidental casualties happen more frequently on warm days when the mean temperature is higher than 14 °C than on cold days. Mean temperatures of around 26 °C result in the greatest possibility of ER visits for accidental casualties. In addition, males were found to face a higher risk of accidental casualties than females at high temperatures. Therefore, the IPEC-classified ER visits are not pure accidents; instead, they are associated closely with meteorological conditions, especially temperature.

Evaluating the short-term effect of ambient temperature on non-fatal outdoor falls and road traffic injuries among children and adolescents in China: a time-stratified case-crossover study

“…Generally, most previous studies suggested a significant association between high temperature and falls (Parslow et al, 2005;Adam-Poupart et al, 2015) or RTIs (Nofal and Saeed, 1997;Basagaña et al, 2015). Similar to the findings of our study, a study in Beijing (China) (Ma et al, 2016) found that accidental casualties happen more frequently on warm days, and the greatest possibility of emergency visits for accidental casualties occurred at 26 °C. An Italian study assessing the relationship between workrelated accidents and hot weather conditions reported that the peak of accidents occurred on days with high but not extreme temperatures (24.8-27.5 °C) (Morabito et al, 2006).…”

“…We speculate that ambient temperature may affect outdoor behavioral patterns in children and adolescents and traffic intensity (Liang et al, 2021). In our study, moderate temperatures may promote the outdoor physical activity among children and adolescents and increase traffic intensity (Cools et al, 2010), which eventually increases the risk of outdoor falls and RTIs (Morabito et al, 2006;Morency et al, 2012;Ma et al, 2016). Our findings suggest that safety education and injury protection measures for outdoor activities must be further strengthened in children and adolescents when ambient temperature is supportive of outdoor activities.…”

Maternal factors associated with neonatal vitamin D deficiency

“…In winter, sunlight travels longer through the atmosphere where the UVB is absorbed to a greater degree. Moreover, because the average temperature in Beijing during winter months (December, January, and February) is typically below 0 °C [13], people usually dress much thicker and expose significantly less skin in winter than in other seasons. This can also lead to a significant birth season disparity in the infants' vitD level between autumn and winter.…”

Effects of ambient temperature and fall-related injuries in Ma’anshan, Anhui Province, China: a distributed lag nonlinear analysis

“…Previous studies have shown that the effect of meteorological factors is time-dependent and is not linear in most cases (Gasparrini et al, 2012). Such lagged effect might be related to the indirect effect of meteorological factors on immunity and thermoregulatory capacity (Ma et al, 2016). At present, the short-term effects of ambient temperature on mortality have been found by many studies worldwide (Huang et al, 2015).…”