Emergency room visits down during key baseball games

Reported by Susan Aldridge, PhD, medical journalist

When the Boston Red Sox were doing well, people preferred staying in front of the TV to visiting the emergency room.
Medical emergencies aren't always life-threatening. Previous work has suggested that people have quite a bit of control over whether or not they show up at the ER. In particular, key sporting events have been shown to be linked to a drop in ER visits. Now a team at the Children's Hospital, Boston, show a detailed connection between the performance of the Red Sox baseball team and the rate of ER visits in the city.

The study relates to the 2004 American League Championship Series and the World Series games. When the team was doing poorly, TV audience ratings were down and ER visits up. But when the team was doing well and tension was high, TV audiences rocketed and ER visits went down. The findings suggest that the idea of what constitutes a medical emergency is somewhat subjective. Clearly, no-one wishes to discourage people from seeking urgent medical help. But this study shows there may be cases where an ER visit is, perhaps, not strictly necessary.

Source
Annals of Emergency Medicine October 2005

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