Correlation between weather and incidence of selected ophthalmological diagnoses: a database analysis

• Published in: Clinical ophthalmology (Auckland, N.Z.) Vol. 10; pp. 1587 - 1592
• Main Authors: Kern, Christoph, Kortüm, Karsten, Müller, Michael, Raabe, Florian, Mayer, Wolfgang Johann, Priglinger, Siegfried, Kreutzer, Thomas Christian
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: New Zealand Dove Medical Press Limited 01.01.2016; Taylor & Francis Ltd; Dove Medical Press
• Subjects: Acute coronary syndromes; Allergies; Analysis; Blood pressure; Conjunctivitis; corneal injury; Data warehouses; Emergency medical care; Emergency services; Exports; Hospitals; Information management; Medical research; Medicine, Experimental; Ophthalmology; Original Research; Patients; Public health; Standard deviation; Statistical analysis; Studies; Temperature; trauma; Uveitis; Variables; Weather; trauma; weather; conjunctivitis; uveitis; corneal injury
• ISSN: 1177-5467; 1177-5483; 1177-5483
• DOI: 10.2147/OPTH.S107656

Our aim was to correlate the overall patient volume and the incidence of several ophthalmological diseases in our emergency department with weather data. For data analysis, we used our clinical data warehouse and weather data. We investigated the weekly overall patient volume and the average weekly incidence of all encoded diagnoses of "conjunctivitis", "foreign body", "acute iridocyclitis", and "corneal abrasion". A Spearman's correlation was performed to link these data with the weekly average sunshine duration, temperature, and wind speed. We noticed increased patient volume in correlation with increasing sunshine duration and higher temperature. Moreover, we found a positive correlation between the weekly incidences of conjunctivitis and of foreign body and weather data. The results of this data analysis reveal the possible influence of external conditions on the health of a population and can be used for weather-dependent resource allocation.