Heat-related illness emergency department visits

Heat-related illness emergency department visits in Minnesota:

• By month with heat index
• By year with heat index
• By age
• By sex and age
• By region
• County rates and comparison maps

Heat can cause acute illness that can sometimes require an emergency department visit (ED visit). 

ED visit data includes patients that were treated in the ED and then either released or hospitalized for further care. ED visit data include more patients than hospitalization data because most people visit the ED first.

ED visits due to heat are sometimes not coded as heat-related, which can mean that the data underestimate heat-related ED visits.

For months May-September. Source ED Visits: Minnesota Hospital Association. Heat index data source: National Aeronautics and Space Administration, North American Land Data Assimilation System (NLDAS). The break indicates a change in International Classification of Disease (ICD) coding from ICD-9 to ICD-10 on October 1st, 2015. Rates from 2000-2014 should not be compared to rates from 2015 onward.

Heat index combines temperature and humidity to better measure what the temperature feels like to the human body. On days with high temperature and humidity, we may feel hotter than expected from the temperature on its own. Heat index and heat-related illness are related, in addition to other risk factors. 

Summertime heat-related ED visits vary widely from year to year.

This chart shows ED visits by age group. Though the number and rate change year to year, trends show that 15-34 year olds and adults over 65 consistently have higher rates of heat-related ED visits than other age groups.

While people 65 years old and older are considered the most sensitive to heat, this chart indicates that males age 15 to 34 have the highest rate of heat-related illness ED visits. This differs from the hospitalization data where males age 65 years old and older had the highest rate of hospitalization.

Urban populations are generally considered at higher risk for heat-related illness due to the urban heat island effect. However, trends show that non-metro popuations in Minnesota consistently experience higher rates of heat-related ED visits compared to the metro population.

Some populations are more vulnerable to heat-related illness than others. Data on the percentage of vulnerable populations in townships throughout Minnesota are available under population vulnerability.

Last updated July 2022. Content is updated as data becomes available.