Hospital emergency rooms may see more patients with depression, anxiety and substance use disorder as summer temperatures rise.shows a modest but steady increase in behavioral health insurance claims throughout the U.S. aligned with warming days. On peak summer days, the researchers find 5-10% more ER visits for mental health emergencies than in cooler spring months.
The findings are based on 3.5 million insurance claims filed from 2010 to 2019, which were provided by OptumLabs Data Warehouse. The highest rates of increase are in northern states. Nori-Sarma says that is probably because residents of these states are less likely to have air conditioning. Dr. Hamad Husainy, speaking for the American College of Emergency Physicians, agrees. Husainy says if there are more behavioral health insurance claims in the summer, it may be because mental health problems are more public during warmer months than in the winter when people tend to isolate at home. But Husainy says the research could open new ways of thinking about emergency room visits.
“The substances that jack your system up into a fight or flight mode go up when exposed to heat,” says Van Susteren, a psychiatrist and author who studies the impacts of climate change on mental health..
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