Evaluating the Risk of Epidemic Thunderstorm Asthma: Lessons from Australia

Sharon L. Campbell, Paul D. Fox-Hughes, Penelope J. Jones, Tomas A. Remenyi, Kate Chappell, Christopher J. White and Fay H. Johnston
Additional contact information
Sharon L. Campbell: Menzies Institute for Medical Research, University of Tasmania, 1 Liverpool St, Hobart, TAS 7000, Australia
Paul D. Fox-Hughes: Bureau of Meteorology, GPO Box 727, Hobart, Tasmania 7001, Australia
Penelope J. Jones: Menzies Institute for Medical Research, University of Tasmania, 1 Liverpool St, Hobart, TAS 7000, Australia
Tomas A. Remenyi: Antarctic Climate and Ecosystems Cooperative Research Centre, University of Tasmania, 20 Castray Esplanade, Hobart, TAS 7000, Australia
Kate Chappell: Menzies Institute for Medical Research, University of Tasmania, 1 Liverpool St, Hobart, TAS 7000, Australia
Christopher J. White: Antarctic Climate and Ecosystems Cooperative Research Centre, University of Tasmania, 20 Castray Esplanade, Hobart, TAS 7000, Australia
Fay H. Johnston: Menzies Institute for Medical Research, University of Tasmania, 1 Liverpool St, Hobart, TAS 7000, Australia

IJERPH, 2019, vol. 16, issue 5, 1-12

Abstract: Epidemic thunderstorm asthma (ETA) is an emerging public health threat in Australia, highlighted by the 2016 event in Melbourne, Victoria, that overwhelmed health services and caused loss of life. However, there is limited understanding of the regional variations in risk. We evaluated the public health risk of ETA in the nearby state of Tasmania by quantifying the frequency of potential ETA episodes and applying a standardized natural disaster risk assessment framework. Using a case–control approach, we analyzed emergency presentations in Tasmania’s public hospitals from 2002 to 2017. Cases were defined as days when asthma presentations exceeded four standard deviations from the mean, and controls as days when asthma presentations were less than one standard deviation from the mean. Four controls were randomly selected for each case. Independently, a meteorologist identified the dates of potential high-risk thunderstorm events. No case days coincided with thunderstorms during the study period. ETA was assessed as a very low risk to the Tasmanian population, with these findings informing risk prioritization and resource allocation. This approach may be scaled and applied in other settings to determine local ETA risk. Furthermore, the identification of hazards using this method allows for critical analysis of existing public health systems.

Keywords: asthma; thunderstorm; public health; risk; hazard (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/16/5/837/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/16/5/837/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:16:y:2019:i:5:p:837-:d:212018

Access Statistics for this article

IJERPH is currently edited by Ms. Jenna Liu

More articles in IJERPH from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().