The descriptive epidemiology of sports/leisure-related heat illness hospitalisations in New South Wales, Australia.

Abstract

Sport-related heat illness has not been commonly studied from an epidemiological perspective. This study presents the descriptive epidemiology of sports/leisure-related heat illness hospitalisations in New South Wales, Australia. All in-patient separations from all acute hospitals in NSW during 2001-2004, with an International Classification of Diseases external cause of injury code indicating "exposure to excessive natural heat (X30)" or any ICD-10 diagnosis code in the range: "effects of heat and light (T67.0-T67.9)", were analysed. The sport/leisure relatedness of cases was defined by ICD-10-AM activity codes indicating involvement in sport/leisure activities. Cases of exposure to heat wh..