What Does the Inflow of Patients into the Rambam Medical Center in Haifa Tells Us about Outdoor Temperatures and Air Pollution?
Abstract
The present study investigates the relationship between atmospheric conditions in the Haifa Bay area and the number of daily visits to the emergency department (ED) of the Rambam medical center in Haifa. In the analysis, average daily PM10 concentrations, measured by the local air monitoring stations, were mutually compared with the number of patients arriving to the emergency department of the medical center and controlled for the mean ambient daily temperatures, humidity and several other potential confounders. The analysis reveals a strong positive association between ambient daily temperatures and PM10 concentrations, and the number of patients arriving at the same day to the Rambam medical center, controlled for autoregressive effects, day of the week and season of the year. Yet, the association between meteorological conditions and the daily number of ED visits emerged with different strength across different age groups.
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