International Health Development Course, Department of Global Health, Nagasaki University School of Tropical Medicine and Global Health, Nagasaki, Japan.
Nagasaki University School of Tropical Medicine and Global Health, Nagasaki, Japan.
Sci Total Environ. 2021 May 10;768:145176. doi: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2021.145176. Epub 2021 Feb 2.
In 2020, Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has brought a huge impact in daily life and has prompted people to take preventive measures. In the summertime, however, the Japanese government has cautioned that some COVID-19 pandemic conditions may affect the risk to heatstroke. This study investigated how the COVID-19 pandemic setting affected heatstroke-related ambulance dispatches (HSAD). Daily HSAD data and relevant weather parameters from June to September from 2016 to 2020 of 47 prefectures in Japan were obtained from the Fire and Disaster Management Agency (FDMA) database. A binary variable representing COVID-19 impact was created, whereby years 2016 to 2019 were coded as 0, while 2020 as 1. We employed a two-stage analysis in elucidating the impact of COVID-19 pandemic on HSAD. Firstly, we regressed HSAD with the COVID-19 binary variable after adjusting for relevant covariates to obtain prefecture-specific effect estimates. Prefecture-specific estimates were subsequently pooled via random effects meta-analysis in generating the pooled estimate. Pooled Relative Risk (RR) of HSAD during the COVID-19 pandemic was 0.78 (95% Confidential Interval [CI], 0.75-0.82). We found an overall statistically significant decrease in HSAD risk during the COVID-19 pandemic in Japan. Specifically, the decrease in the risk of HSAD may be linked to the COVID-19 precautionary measures such as stay-home request and availability of alternative consultation services, which may have decreased the direct exposure of the population to extreme heat.
2020 年，新型冠状病毒肺炎（COVID-19）大流行对日常生活造成了巨大影响，并促使人们采取预防措施。然而，在夏季，日本政府警告称，COVID-19 大流行的某些情况可能会影响中暑风险。本研究调查了 COVID-19 大流行环境如何影响与中暑相关的救护车派遣（HSAD）。从 2016 年至 2020 年，从消防和灾害管理局（FDMA）数据库中获取了日本 47 个县 6 月至 9 月的每日 HSAD 数据和相关天气参数。创建了一个代表 COVID-19 影响的二进制变量，其中 2016 年至 2019 年编码为 0，而 2020 年编码为 1。我们采用两阶段分析方法阐明 COVID-19 大流行对 HSAD 的影响。首先，我们在调整了相关协变量后，将 HSAD 与 COVID-19 二进制变量进行回归，以获得特定县的效应估计值。随后，通过随机效应荟萃分析对特定县的估计值进行汇总，以生成汇总估计值。COVID-19 大流行期间 HSAD 的汇总相对风险（RR）为 0.78（95%置信区间[CI]，0.75-0.82）。我们发现日本 COVID-19 大流行期间 HSAD 风险总体上显著降低。具体而言，HSAD 风险的降低可能与 COVID-19 预防措施有关，例如居家令和提供替代咨询服务，这些措施可能减少了人群直接暴露于极端高温的机会。
