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Asthma-Related Emergency Department Visits in North Carolina Following Hurricane Irene

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 June 2021

Kristen N. Cowan ,
Audrey F. Pennington ,
Kanta Sircar  and
W. Dana Flanders
Kristen N. Cowan*
Affiliation:
Asthma and Community Health Branch, Division of Environmental Health Science and Practice, National Center for Environmental Health, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Chamblee, GA, USA Oak Ridge Institute for Science and Education, Oak Ridge, TN, USA
Audrey F. Pennington
Affiliation:
Asthma and Community Health Branch, Division of Environmental Health Science and Practice, National Center for Environmental Health, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Chamblee, GA, USA
Kanta Sircar
Affiliation:
Asthma and Community Health Branch, Division of Environmental Health Science and Practice, National Center for Environmental Health, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Chamblee, GA, USA
W. Dana Flanders
Affiliation:
Asthma and Community Health Branch, Division of Environmental Health Science and Practice, National Center for Environmental Health, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Chamblee, GA, USA Emory University Rollins School of Public Health Department of Epidemiology, Atlanta, GA, USA
*
Corresponding author: Kristen N. Cowan, Email: kcowan@unc.edu.
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Abstract

Objective:

Previous research suggests that people with asthma may experience a worsening of symptoms following hurricanes due to changes in environmental exposures, discontinuity in chronic disease management, and stress. The objective of this study was to estimate changes in asthma-related emergency department (ED) visits in North Carolina following Hurricane Irene, which made landfall in August 2011.

Methods:

Changes in asthma-related ED visits in September to December of 2010 and 2011 were examined using data from the Healthcare Cost and Utilization Project State Emergency Department and Inpatient Databases. A Poisson generalized linear model was used to estimate the association between Federal Emergency Management Agency disaster declarations following Hurricane Irene and county-level asthma-related ED visits controlling for month, year, and county.

Results:

Following Hurricane Irene, disaster declarations were made for 38 of 100 counties in North Carolina. In September 2010, the rate of asthma-related ED visits for North Carolina was 6 per 10,000 person-months. In September 2011, rates of asthma-related ED visits were similar in counties with and without disaster declarations (7 and 5 per 10,000 person-months, respectively). When adjusting for covariates, there was little or no difference in the rate of asthma ED visits before and after the hurricane between counties with and without a disaster declaration (rate ratio {RR} [95% confidence interval {CI}] = 1.02[0.97, 1.08]).

Conclusions:

Although risk factors for asthma exacerbations increase following hurricanes, these results found little evidence of an increase in asthma-related ED visits in North Carolina following Hurricane Irene.

Keywords

emergency preparednessepidemiologic methodsenvironmentdisastershurricane
Type
Brief Report
Information
Disaster Medicine and Public Health Preparedness , Volume 17 , 2023 , e16
Copyright
© Society for Disaster Medicine and Public Health, Inc. 2021

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