Association between heat and hospital admissions in people with disabilities in South Korea: a nationwide, casecrossover study

Author: Jinah Park, Ayoung Kim, Yoonhee Kim, Minhyeok Choi, Tae Ho Yoon, Cinoo Kang, Hee Jung Kang, Jieun Oh, Michelle L Bell, Ho Kim & Whanhee Lee

Year: 2024

Published in: Lancet Planet Health

Despite extensive findings on the hazardous impacts of environmental heat exposure, little is known about the effect on people with disabilities. This study aimed to estimate the association between environmental heat exposure and emergency department admissions for people with disabilities compared with people without disabilities. In this nationwide, case-crossover study, we linked data on emergency department admissions (cases) for any cause in the warm season in South Korea from the Korean National Health Insurance Service (NHIS)–National Sample Cohort database (a nationally representative database of 1 million systematically sampled beneficiaries covering all ages) from Jan 1, 2002, to Dec 31, 2019, and short-term daily mean temperature exposure (measured via Google Earth Engine at a 9 km spatial grid, aggregated to district). We defined beneficiaries with disabilities as those who were registered as disabled in the NHIS; disabilities included in our study were physical disability, brain lesion disorders, blindness or vision loss, and deafness or hearing loss. Other types of disability were not included for confidentiality reasons. A time-stratified case-crossover design, in which participants served as their own control, was used with conditional logistic regression to estimate the association between heat and emergency department admissions in people with and without disabilities. Heat was associated with increased risk of emergency department admissions for people with and without disabilities, but the risk appeared to be higher for those with disabilities. These results can inform policy makers when establishing action plans for people with disabilities.