Extreme weather is increasingly landing Australians in hospital, with extreme heat accounting for more than three in four weather-related hospitalisations in the past 10 years, according to new government data.
The Australian Institute of Health and Welfare on Thursday released a report for the first time assessing the impact of four extreme weather events on hospitalisations and deaths from 2012–13 to 2021–22, including extreme heat, extreme cold, bushfires and rain and storms.
The report matched the data to the El Niño-Southern Oscillation cycle – the oscillating warming and cooling pattern driven by winds and sea surface temperatures across the equatorial Pacific Ocean – and found that extreme weather-related hospitalisations reached more than 1,000 cases every three years.
There were 1,027 extreme weather-related hospitalisations between 2013-14, between 2016-17 there were 1,033 cases, and 1,108 between 2019-20, the report found. The lead author, Dr Heather Swanston, said “these spikes are becoming progressively higher and the key message is that the trend of weather-related injuries is increasing”.
The report found in the 10 years from 2012–13 to 2021–22 there were 9,119 hospitalisations due to extreme weather-related injuries and, of these, the overwhelming majority – 7,104 (78%) – were due to extreme heat.
It also found 677 deaths in the past decade were associated with extreme weather, which is, on average, 68 deaths per year. Of these, extreme heat accounted for 293 (over 43%).
The Bureau of Meteorology’s most recent State of the Climate report warned extreme heat events are predicted to become more frequent, more intense and longer in duration, with data already showing the number of days with extreme heat increasing across Australia over time.
The report is based on administrative health and mortality datasets as well as weather data from the Bureau of Meteorology, only counting acute injuries where hospitalisation or death occurs and extreme weather is recorded as the primary cause of injury.
The report said “it is likely that only a small proportion of weather-related injuries lead to a stay in hospital, and these are typically more severe injuries. The data do not include information on people who sought treatment in the emergency department, general practices, outpatient settings or pharmacies.”
Swanston said the report only counted injuries directly related to weather but there were many more injuries indirectly due to extreme weather, for example from road traffic accidents, “so if anything, these data are the starting point for counting extreme weather related injuries”.
The report found that although similar numbers of heatwave related hospitalisations occurred in El Niño and La Niña years, the number of injuries related to bushfires was higher in El Niño years.
On average bushfire injuries occur 1.6 times as often in El Niño years, the report found. The Bureau of Meteorology in September declared Australia in an El Niño climate pattern.
With the exception of Tasmania, extreme heat was the most common cause leading to extreme weather-related hospitalisation for all states and territories, ranging from five to 10 times as many hospitalisations as the next most common extreme weather-related cause. In Tasmania, extreme cold was the leading cause of hospitalisation.
Among people who had an extreme weather-related injury hospitalisation in 2019–20 to 2021–22, one in three lived in Queensland and almost one in five lived in Victoria, according to the report.
The report also highlighted that these hospitalisations were most likely occurring in people who were vulnerable to “thermal inequity” including outdoor workers, elderly people and especially people with medical vulnerability experiencing socioeconomic disadvantage.
Dr Amy Peden, a senior research fellow in the school of population health at the University of New South Wales, said the findings of the report were “sobering”.
Peden said the report added to the urgent need for climate action, without which the most vulnerable Australians will face increasing injury-related risk.
“The impacts of extreme heat on human health are increasingly being understood, but the links between heat and injury are only now starting to become apparent. Reports like this are vital to assist policymakers and practitioners,” Peden said.
Calls by medical groups for governments to take urgent climate action by phasing out fossil fuels are growing.
