Authors
Hyojung Jang, Peter M Graffy, Benjamin W Barrett, Daniel E Horton, Jennifer L Chan, Abel N Kho
Published in
Science advances. Volume 12. Issue 35. Pages eaed3977. Aug 28, 2026. Epub Aug 26, 2026.
Abstract
Extreme heat is an escalating public health concern. Although prior studies have examined heat-health associations, their reliance on restricted diagnoses and diagnostic categories may miss or misclassify heat-related illness. Here, we conducted a heat-wide association study to evaluate acute-care diagnoses associated with extreme heat in Chicago, Illinois. Using 916,904 acute-care visits-including emergency department and urgent care encounters-among 372,140 adults across four health care systems from 2011 to 2023, we applied a two-stage analytic approach: quasi-Poisson regression to screen diagnosis codes associated with heat, followed by distributed lag nonlinear models in a time-stratified case-crossover design to characterize exposure-response and lag patterns. Stage 1 retained 44 diagnosis codes, and 33 clinically reportable diagnoses were retained after stage 2. We observed elevated cumulative odds over lags 0 to 3 for multiple diagnoses, including fluid-balance and renal disorders, dermatologic and pressure-related conditions, multiple sclerosis, a cannabinoid-related mental and behavioral disorder, varicose veins of the lower extremities, and multiple injuries and external causes. By analyzing the full diagnostic spectrum of acute-care services, this study improves the clinical characterization of heat-associated morbidity in acute-care settings.
PMID:
42647618
Bibliographic data and abstract were imported from PubMed on 27 Aug 2026.
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