3 ms·
That's almost wrong. There are 44.5 (edit: .44) visits to the ER per capita per year in the United States (admittedly, those are likely biased to some subset of
by foota 10y ago
That's almost wrong. There are 44.5 (edit: .44) visits to the ER per capita per year in the United States (admittedly, those are likely biased to some subset of the population). Of those visits, roughly 2 million result in urgent care admission and 16 million in hospital admission. So roughly 5% of the country has an ER visit that results in their being admitted to the hospital in some state. There's no quick way to tell what effect delayed visits would have on that but it seems like it could be significant.
[source: http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/emergency-department.htm http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/emergency-department.htm]
- maxerickson 10y agoIt's 44.5 visits per 100 persons (per capita means per person). I'm sure there would be a measurable effect from diminished access to the ER and various other services. I just think it will be small. Looking through some of the links from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Blizzards_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Blizzards_in_the_Unit... You do get more deaths than I thought. Many of them are attributable to carbon monoxide poisoning (totally preventable). Other major causes are cardiac arrests while shoveling and traffic accidents.
- foota 10y agoI misspoke, 44 visits per capita would be ludicrous (related: I'm curious how many hours are spent in some kind of medical practice per capita) Thanks for following up, perhaps I'm overestimating the degradation to the ability to receive ems. Some quick searching didn't pull up any studies done on this, so perhaps it's not significant.
- maxerickson 10y agoSorry if that came across harsh, I was trying to correct the conversation, not be critical or snide. I figured it was a typoish thing.
- foota 10y agoNo worries, there was just a bit of embarrassment and no bad feelings. This article seems to talk about increased stress on the cardiovascular system as a result of cold, http://www.livescience.com/42568-cold-winter-weather-related-deaths.html http://www.livescience.com/42568-cold-winter-weather-related... With 4,600 deaths being delayed as a result of people leaving cold areas. This seems to suggest that a lot of people die sooner due to this? I'm still curious about whether access to medical service harms people but can't find anyone talking about it...