• Prehosp Disaster Med · Mar 2010

    Mass-gathering medical care: retrospective analysis of patient presentations over five years at a multi-day mass gathering.

    • William D Grant, Nicholas E Nacca, Louise A Prince, and Jay M Scott.
    • Department of Emergency Medicine, State University of New York Upstate Medical University, Syracuse, New York, USA.
    • Prehosp Disaster Med. 2010 Mar 1;25(2):183-7.

    IntroductionThere is a scarcity of analytical data regarding mass-gathering medical care. The purpose of this study was to identify and evaluate the range and nature of illness and injury for patrons of an annual, multi-day, mass gathering.MethodsEncounter data from all patients seen by emergency physicians at the New York State Fair Infirmary during the past five years were analyzed. From these data, a category list was consolidated to 36 reasons for the visit based on chief complaint, nursing notes, and physician notes. The most common reasons for being seen by a physician were analyzed to determine age and gender discrepancies.ResultsThe average number of attendees at the Fair per year from 2004-2008 was 950,973. Emergency physicians evaluated a total of 2,075 patients from 2004-2008. The average patient presentation rate over the past four years (2005-2008) was 4.8 +/-1.1/10,000 patrons. The average transport to hospital rate over the past four years was 2.7 +/-1.1/100,000 patrons. The average age of all patients seen was 34.4 +/-21.6 years, and 58.1% of the patients were female. The most common reasons to seek medical attention included: dehydration/heat-related illness (11.4%); abrasion/laceration (10.6%); and fall-related injury (10.2%). Two groups, dehydration/heat-related illness 74% (t (4) = 2.90, p <0.05), and fall-related injury (68%; t (4) = 5.17, p <0.05) were disproportionately female. There also was a direct relationship between age and female gender within the fall-related injury category (X(2) (1, n = 213) = 11.41, p <0.05).ConclusionsPatron data from fairs and expositions is a valuable resource for studying mass-gathering medical care. A majority (58%) of patients seen at the infirmary were female. The most common reason for being seen was dehydration/heat-related illness, which heavily favored females, but favored no age groups. The abrasion/laceration category did not contribute to the gender discrepancy. Patients who fell tended to be females >40 years of age. Further analysis is required to determine the reason for the gender discrepancies. Planners of multi-day mass gatherings should develop public education programs and evaluate their impact on the at-risk populations identified by this analysis.

      Pubmed     Copy Citation     Plaintext  

      Add institutional full text...

    Notes

     
    Knowledge, pearl, summary or comment to share?
    300 characters remaining
    help        
    You can also include formatting, links, images and footnotes in your notes
    • Simple formatting can be added to notes, such as *italics*, _underline_ or **bold**.
    • Superscript can be denoted by <sup>text</sup> and subscript <sub>text</sub>.
    • Numbered or bulleted lists can be created using either numbered lines 1. 2. 3., hyphens - or asterisks *.
    • Links can be included with: [my link to pubmed](http://pubmed.com)
    • Images can be included with: ![alt text](https://bestmedicaljournal.com/study_graph.jpg "Image Title Text")
    • For footnotes use [^1](This is a footnote.) inline.
    • Or use an inline reference [^1] to refer to a longer footnote elseweher in the document [^1]: This is a long footnote..

    hide…