The influence of a major sporting event upon emergency department attendances; A retrospective cross-national European study

Hughes, Helen E., Colón-González, Felipe J., Fouillet, Anne, Elliot, Alex J., Caserio-Schonemann, Céline, Hughes, Thomas C., Gallagher, Naomh, Morbey, Roger A., Smith, Gillian E., Thomas, Daniel Rh. and Lake, Iain R. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4407-5357 (2018) The influence of a major sporting event upon emergency department attendances; A retrospective cross-national European study. PLoS One, 13 (6). ISSN 1932-6203

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Abstract

Major sporting events may influence attendance levels at hospital emergency departments (ED). Previous research has focussed on the impact of single games, or wins/losses for specific teams/countries, limiting wider generalisations. Here we explore the impact of the Euro 2016 football championships on ED attendances across four participating nations (England, France, Northern Ireland, Wales), using a single methodology. Match days were found to have no significant impact upon daily ED attendances levels. Focussing upon hourly attendances, ED attendances across all countries in the four hour pre-match period were statistically significantly lower than would be expected (OR 0.97, 95% CI 0.94–0.99) and further reduced during matches (OR 0.94, 95% CI 0.91–0.97). In the 4 hour post-match period there was no significant increase in attendances (OR 1.01, 95% CI 0.99–1.04). However, these impacts were highly variable between individual matches: for example in the 4 hour period following the final, involving France, the number of ED attendances in France increased significantly (OR 1.27, 95% CI 1.13–1.42). Overall our results indicate relatively small impacts of major sporting events upon ED attendances. The heterogeneity observed makes it difficult for health providers to predict how major sporting events may affect ED attendances but supports the future development of compatible systems in different countries to support cross-border public health surveillance.

Item Type:	Article
Additional Information:	Data Availability: The datasets analysed during the current study are from the health records collected during individual patient attendances at EDs. Access to these datasets was possible as part of the public health function of each of the organisations involved, the authors do not have permission to share the data further or make it publicly available. However, the data used here may be made available by the responsible organisations, on request: • Syndromic surveillance data for England and Northern Ireland are collected and held by PHE for surveillance purposes and are not available for access: the authors had special access to the data for England and Northern Ireland. PHE are data processors for attendance data reported to EDSSS; individual NHS Trusts are data owners. EDSSS governance agreements with each Trust state that ED attendance data collected through the EDSSS will not be shared with other parties to preserve the anonymity of Trusts and patients. The Real-time Syndromic Surveillance Team can be contacted directly at: syndromic.surveillance@phe.gov.uk. Information on the PHE Office for Data Release, including contact details, can be found here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/accessing-public-health-england-data/about-the-phe-odr-and-accessing-data. • Syndromic surveillance data for France are collected and held by Santé Publique France for surveillance purposes. Bespoke emergency department data requests for public health research purposes can be formulated and will be reviewed on a case-by-case by the agency. The syndromic surveillance unit can be contacted directly with requests for data used in this study at: sursaudhotline@santepubliquefrance.fr. • Emergency Department data for Wales are held by NHS Wales Informatics Service: http://www.infoandstats.wales.nhs.uk/page.cfm?orgid=869&pid=40977. Data used in this study can be requested by contacting: pdit.requests@wales.nhs.uk. Funding: This research received no specific grant from any funding agency, commercial or not-for-profit sectors. This surveillance is undertaken as part of the national surveillance functions of Public Health England and Santé Publique France. HEH and IRL receive support from the National Institute for Health Research Health Protection Research Unit (NIHR HPRU) in Gastrointestinal Infections. FJCG, AJE, IRL and GES receive support from the National Institute for Health Research Health Protection Research Unit (NIHR HPRU) in Emergency Preparedness and Response. The views expressed are those of the authors and not necessarily those of the NHS, the NIHR, the Department of Health or Public Health England.
Uncontrolled Keywords:	sdg 3 - good health and well-being ,/dk/atira/pure/sustainabledevelopmentgoals/good_health_and_well_being
Faculty \ School:	Faculty of Science > School of Environmental Sciences
UEA Research Groups:	University of East Anglia Schools > Faculty of Science > Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research Faculty of Science > Research Centres > Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research Faculty of Science > Research Groups > Environmental Social Sciences Faculty of Science > Research Centres > Centre for Ecology, Evolution and Conservation
Depositing User:	Pure Connector
Date Deposited:	29 May 2018 08:30
Last Modified:	02 Dec 2024 01:28
URI:	https://ueaeprints.uea.ac.uk/id/eprint/67195
DOI:	10.1371/journal.pone.0198665

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